Ahh ok I get what you're trying to do. No I don't think there is a way to do that out of the box in max,2D snaps in the left or front viewport COULD work but would take a lot of setup and its easier to handle it another way. There are a few different ways people would approach that in max. Model the chimney off of the…
See my post above yours. ;-) I've used autogrid before, but it won't let you plant verts. By the way, thanks for taking your time to try and help. Maybe we'll figure out how to get this running. If I can do it without needing to buy miauu's script pack, that would be lovely.