Based off a post I made on Reddit a while back. Hope y’all enjoy.
Edit: Since people are mentioning it - the stat buffs do not matter. I was being silly when I threw those in. But yes, the scale is 0-100.
Ok, the mask if you are actually rested and not just “feeling rested”. Being hit with the physical effects of sleep deprivation and having organs start failing after a couple weeks would be a real problem.
Otherwise, that damn penny. Knowing that I have 12 hours of “I win” without any real limitation, even if it ends up being 12 hrs/month, would be obscenely broken. None of the other artifacts even come close. I make sure I always flip on a Monday at about 8am, if it’s heads, I apply for jobs I want and trade some stocks until about 1 pm, then go for a walk and see what goodness I can fall into for my life. Head home around 6pm with 2 hours of perfect luck left which I spend working on the cure for Autoimmune diseases and Cancer. Once I have enough wealth built up and have found plenty of cures to Salk the hell our of to piss off the pharma companies, I start working on Nuclear Fusion. Continue this pattern until I get bored.
I agree, with one huge exception. Why the hell are you wasting your lucky coin applying for jobs?
Also, sure, do some trades once to get some starter money. But that’s a waste of your precious 12 hours a month. As is going for walks. You can be on vacation the other 98% of the time; spend every second of your penny time doing as much good as you can.
Cure diseases, solve nuclear fusion, end wars and violence, build infrastructure. There seems to be no limit the way it’s worded. Hell, build the Enterprise from Star Trek (or a better space ship) and spend your non-penny time exploring the galaxy.
Do physical laws even apply? Can you build replicators for everyone? How about a mansion in a tardis for every person on the planet?
For how long do you have to try something to succeed at it? Maybe you can do each of these things in just a couple seconds. If that’s the case, maybe penny time will quickly become non-valuable if you run out of ideas.
- I specifically stated that “I apply to jobs I want”. Your statement indicates that you consider all work to be a waste of time. I personally want a job developing AI tools that work for the betterment of humanity. I wouldn’t need it to pay well as the investments I make on penny time would be my income. Also, it is one of those things that take too long to do in 12 hours, and having a team to work with helps a ton too.
- The trades aren’t taking 12 hours. If you had the golden touch, and intended on making trades that had long-term viability with 100% success, then an hour or two a month would be all you needed. This also makes sure that the growth is slow enough that the SEC doesn’t get alerted.
- I didn’t say I was going to take a walk to take a walk. I said I was walking around for a few hours to see what good fortune I could find. Again, if I have 100% successful luck, then everything I do is charmed. Walking “aimlessly” around most towns while under such an effect greatly increases the opportunities to happen across something that is beneficial.
- The limitation is that you mentioned at the end, the 12 hours every 2 weeks. There is only so much that can be done in that span of time. Everything I mentioned was specifically designed to expand the knock-on effects of the good luck into the rest of the time that I don’t have it. A stock portfolio with guaranteed long-term growth, research breakthroughs which need to be built upon by experimentation and work, meeting the right people and forming the right relationships in my community, a long-term employment that provides me the challenges and long-term results in the world. The biggest challenge is to make sure that you have a good life that makes a difference while you have your normal luck, not concentrating on short term success.
I actually wonder if the coin interacts with an int stat. What if it’s more nuanced than you’ll attempt to create a replicator by doing x and you will successfully find out that it’s impossible to do it in the way you intended.
I’m thinking like “I’m going to make a replicator in my garage” then getting stuck since you don’t know how to make the attempt. If you would know how then you’d be successful of course.
I have always had the power fantasy of the superpower of “I can manipulate anything I can understand. The better, more nuanced, and more correct my understanding, the more fine and powerful my control.”
It is essentially an int stat demipotence. Obviously, I would never achieve omnipotence or omniscience, but it would be cool to just rewrite the laws of physics because I understand how they work normally.
Also, I know better than to ever touch the Hubble constant or vacuum energy state. It would be fun to do extremely local manipulation of the gravitational constant or maybe some of the Riemann curvature constants to adjust the local shape of spacetime.
If you send us all hurtling into the sun, I swear to god…
Just, uh, be careful with gravity lol
I’ll be careful. Keep things very local. That said, I cannot promise that I won’t create a pillar of negative mass curvature to enable instantaneous, non-inertial, light speed acceleration directly into the sun for specific humans.
I apply for jobs I want and trade some stocks
Bro, why are you applying for jobs? You are rich!
Again, not all jobs are about money. I want something meaningful to occupy my non-lucky time. All being rich means for me is that I don’t have go suffer while I pursue it. It also affords me more time to focus on what I want to focus on and lead a much lower-stress life. I’m not looking to enrich someone with the job, but I would like to enrich the world.
The mask, the penny, and (depending on how hand-wavey you get) the glasses, are on a different power level than the other two.
7 extra hours of life per day, at full rest?
On demand money(gambling), or better(anything else, like applying at a school), though unreliably, once a month?
Auto-navigate to your desired outcome when other people are involved?
Yeah, life-breaking shit
Nope. The mask only works for one hour. It takes 30 seconds to fall asleep. So you can never get the hour it takes to be fully rested.
Nope. The writing is deterministic. "The wearer 1. falls asleep (time amount) after wearing, AND 2. awakens (time amount) later, feeling fully rested.
One doesn’t depend on the other. It’s just what the mask does, step by step.
I only worry if it makes it impossible to wake up at all…
The coin, because I can flip every two weeks to attempt total world domination, and it has a pretty high chance of succeeding somehow. Or just more mundane things like flipping to win the jackpot.
The slick talker glasses are also pretty overpowered, you can achieve much the same as with the penny if you can just give a quick speech and everyone in the room either tries to fuck you or be you five minutes later.
But my heart is with the quick sleeper mask, I’m never really rested after waking up and also procrastinate going to bed all the time. Getting a full rest in one hour sounds like the dream
I see we had the same thought process, I think I’d take the mask too even though the coin is technically far more powerful if random in its power.
If you have the coin, you’ll pretty much get infinite money. With that you can buy and sleep treatment you need. Also, not having to work means you can sleep whenever you want.
Coin
Look, the glasses are nice and all, but they don’t give you a 50% change to win the lottery and randomly realise a way to prove/disprove the Riemann hypothesis every two weeks
I wonder how this works with elections. In my country, the votes are counted within 12 hours. When I’m voting on a party, I am attempting to make said party the largest one. Does the coin just give me a 50% chance to unilaterally decide my government every election cycle?
Edit: oh shit, it’s not 50% chance, but 100% after it came into effect once. The first time it lands on heads, try to guess the next flip’s outcome by guessing it would be heads. Since the coin is in effect, this guess is correct, even though the next coin will only be flipped in two weeks
In other words, the coin just gives you reality warping for halve a day every two weeks
It says “everything the user attempts” which technically you can guess what the next coin result will be correctly but your guess will stop being lucky after 12 hours and your attempt won’t be lucky.
Coin sounds the best tbh. It’s an infinite money with extra benefits.
I’m assuming there’s a downside, like you have to commit to whatever thing you were planning before the flip. So like I say I’m going to slap a cop, and then I flip the coin, hoping for the best.
Maybe the effect only lasts until you look which side of the coin came up - so you won’t know how it will go until you’ve tried it. :D
Does the coin just give me a 50% chance to unilaterally decide my government every election cycle?
No, this one is the most like a “monkey’s paw” on this list. Here’s why:
everything the user attempts will work out in their favor
For instance, the worst possible candidate in your district/country is absolutely going to lower your taxes. Doesn’t matter who you want to win.
The sleep mask looks like the obvious bet. Have you ever been awake for 20 hours straight? It’s not debilitating, but after about 18 I start getting woozy. I’m gonna go with it anyway, because even if I take the penny and win the lottery, the one thing money can’t buy is time
Au conteaire, money well spent does, in fact, buy time. If you are broke and have to spend half your day riding buses to get your errands done and you buy a car and can get them done in an hour or two, that is half a day you just bought. If you can hire a maid and a chef, that is all of the time that would have been spent cleaning and cooking that you now get to figure out how to spend. Don’t let anyone lie to you that money cannot buy time, because being able to use money to speed up tasks or offload them entirely is literally buying time.
Yeah the penny is crazy OP. Ultimately, if something can be done, you can do it. Ignoring what you said for a moment, which is entirely true.
Get rich, create company that is focused on sleep research and ways to reduce/eliminate it while staying 100% healthy, unlimited funds, top minds, and every month you can help speed things up significantly.
And if it’s fundamentally impossible, you’ll still have plenty of other goals to choose from, and you’ll absolutely appreciate having the entire day free to do what you want while having to sleep, vs having to still go to work but sitting up all night.
The other catch is, while it states a cool down of 20 hours, functionally you’d generally have to be awake 23 hours, unless you had the luxury of being able to sleep at any time. Sleeping every 20 hours for 1 hour isn’t going to stay at a consistent time.
You can still go to bed if you’re tired. Just put on the mask when the cooldown is up. Or don’t.
The penny, then I’ll try and take the rest. (Flips coin, it landed on heads!)
Get fatigue mask.
Work out until completely destroyed
Put on mask
Wake up refreshed
Rinse repeat until I can crush stones between fingers
Dig a lithium mine by hand
Dominate the battery market and develop affordable electric vehicles
Use money to build large tubes
Use personal strength to javalin throw that shit into space
Get obscenely rich
Buy facebook actually make it better
Change name legally to: Fuck you Elon Musk
Cooldown: 20 hours
Never heard of a 20 hour workout?
But I mean if you are throwing stuff into space I mean you might actually need to work out that long.
You sound like a Musk apologist
Will the sleep mask make me well rested or the regular not rested I usually get from sleeping 8 hours?
Sleep disorders, checking in!
23 hours a day instead of 16 to 19 seems real good. That’s like living considerably longer.
Idunno, now I’m conflicted. On the one hand, having 20ish more years to enjoy life would be great, but winning the lottery via the penny would make the 40ish waking years I have left much higher quality
Better to be lucky than good.
Plus the others are essentially crutches. Febreeze underwear? Just take a shower. “Charm” glasses? A shower and a new haircut will get you halfway there. Maybe a watch and new shoes too.
Sleep mask is tempting but you need to hold onto it and use it for the benefit. With the penny you only need to use it once or twice to change your life. No one will ever know because you just “got lucky”. You can live a normal life too.
Compelling, except there’s no implicit control over what the “luck” brings. I assume it’s always positive, but from who’s/ what’s perspective? Winning the lotto might be lucky, but it could be some other “positive” thing that you don’t really care for. Maybe that’s a little too “monkey’s paw”? I dunno. Just to many variables.
I get you, but “whatever the user attempts” “works out in their favour”, seems pretty clear to me. If I attempt to win at the lottery, the outcome will work out in a way that favours what I want. It feels hard for it to go wrong.
I guess it may be unclear when “entered a lottery but won only the ticket price, because otherwise would’ve been killed in a robbery” kind of situation comes into play. Is that luck or no luck? Would winning still be luck if robbers only came after the lucky dozen hours end?
Coin is overpowered af. Just flip the coin and buy a lottery. At that precise moment, all other items are practically useless.
You can hire a cook, sleep, buy whatever you need, hire people to do your bidding. Who needs charisma when they have money?
It is overpowered af but don’t use it to get money. Use it to get the charisma glasses and each of the others during your first 12 hours (coincidently, they will all be close and easy to grab). Then attempt to write out an exhaustive list of any other objects or abilities that might threaten you (or maybe start with this one, as the glasses are the only one that threatens you from the original list). I’d say hopefully no one else has some other object or ability that warns them of anything that might threaten them, but yours might nullify theirs during your 12 hours. Attempt to deal with the list before half the time has passed.
Then start attempting to gain new abilities. Or attempt to find 28 more coins. 28 instead of 27 so that you can flip the next coin before the current one runs out and never fail the next flip. The sleep mask ensures you never sleep through a transition. Not that you’ll even need the ability to be constantly active.
“Anything you attempt” is waaaaay too broad.
Absolutely. I was assuming one can only access to one item.
Yeah I was going to choose the sleep mask until I saw the coin. If everything goes my way then I effectively have the powers of the glasses and the frying pan, plus unlimited luxury from lotteries, discoveries, opportunities, etc. The cooldown needs to be nerfed, or maybe add a negative debuff to the tails side.
If I equip the shoes and the frying pan, I can RP as the scout from tf2.
BONK
I’m not even winded!
I’ll do you one better and rank these instead.
- Lucky Penny
- Caffeinated shoes
- Fatigue masking mask
- Frying pan of flavor
- The cool glasses
- Underwear of febreze
I really wanted to put the caffeinated shoes at number 1, but the lucky Penny sounds OP.
Also, the underwear is an unfortunate item because most people who need it wouldn’t choose it. It’s also the only item that could be simulated with one hour of effort a day (at most) for most people.
Nah, glasses need to be ranked much higher. Do you realize how powerful those are just in every day use? Always impress at job interviews or reviews for promotions/raises? Use in sales jobs or anything customer/client facing to always come out of it ahead? Not only being able to be effortlessly popular in all forms of relationships, but also always know the right things to say to help those people or help them feel better?
“Social situations” is such a broad term that applies to so much of life, and being able to navigate them perfectly implies more than just schmoozing your way to the top. They’d help you do better and be better, basically everywhere.
I think you’re right about the glasses. At the very least they’re probably better than that frying pan. The more I think about it they might be right under that penny.
With the glasses it’s all fun and games until you’re assassinated by someone you accidentally crossed without even knowing. Because assassination is not so much of a social situation ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I mean, that’s on you for abusing any power up. If you’re trying to rule the world, then sure you might run into some repercussions. If you’re just living your own life, knowing the best way to navigate any interaction with another person is powerful.
Any of the items could be abused in a way that would make enemies, and some of them have other drawbacks on top of that.
Being generous, I’d say I could run maybe a half mile at full tilt before I collapse completely. +400% stamina would put me at two miles, and the shoes last “while stamina lasts.” Pretty strong, but not Flash OP.
That’s what I was thinking but Lucky Penny is weirded way too close to a monkey paw,
And I think the shoes may make you run a long way tall fast but only as fast as you could already run? Because it’s only while afternoons lasts. Heck it might just insta gib you
Ok … duh … the glasses are the best artifact.
You could be running the world in no time with that kind of charm applied to politics.
Jesus, who the fuck wants to do that…?
I am definitely not qualified to run the world.
Delegate! Just use the glasses to convince qualified trustworthy people to run the world for you.
Identifying qualified trustworthy people may not be a simple task, everyone has an ulterior motive.
True, but I’m banking on the magic glasses getting them to open up about their ulterior motives so I can filter accordingly.
I refer back to my original comment then, who the fuck wants to do that?
You get to be a full time interviewer, with any bad decisions you make fucking up the planet. The ulterior motives may not exist initially but you can be sure that someone will convince your A-team there are “better” ways to do things.
No thank you, give me 7 extra hours per day to enjoy myself with only 1 hour needed to sleep.
Does the underwear cover basic grooming and self care? I.e. do I still need to trim my fingernails, shave, apply sunscreen?
What about the health benefits of staying clean? I mean nice breath is fine, but if I stop brushing will I get cavities? If I get a cut, do I still need to clean the wound to avoid infection?
This was where I went as well. It’d be fine to appear immaculate, but actually purging every piece of filth from yourself, instantly, constantly is terrifying. Most especially when you consider it a bit further- it’s essentially an erosion field, regardless of how it performs the task. In the most extreme extension of its abilities, it may prevent any of that ooky lead hollow point from landing on you. It’s too vague.
Couldn’t you use the penny and just attempt to find the cure for death? It makes everything else silly.
Ok great now you have the cute of death. You’re the only person who knows it’s true and you created it basically out of complete accident. Now explain it’s mechanics to a scientist the next day.
Just wait 2 weeks
If it works someone will reverse engineer it with time
Well obviously you just attempt to invent it afterwards and succeed by random chance.