Most overpowered vs. thread ever

[golentan]

I was having a chat the other day with a friend, and we threw in the stereotypical "Any sufficiently advanced tech..." line. I said "of course, there are some things magic can do that technology can't." Somewhere along the line, we morphed into what I am about to present to you.

Firstly, the ground rules:

Rule 1: The tippyverse includes solely the resources available to the prime material plane as evidenced in a joint cosmology encompassing all PUBLISHED dnd settings. Epic spells have a maximum range of galactic. They cannot use homebrewed spells (with the obvious required exceptions for epic magic). Rule system is 3.5.

Rule 2: The Culture is not allowed to bring in ringers from their universe. They may do anything else which they have a demonstrated ability to do. They are assumed to have one galaxy for each published campaign setting in the dnd universe.

Rule 3: Both sides begin in distinct planes of existence. Both have the power to reach the other. Both may expand to any plane/galaxy they could reach in time with sufficient forces to colonize.

Rule 4: Neither side may "reverse engineer" the other side's abilities. While they may improve their own (if that's even possible), the culture can't learn magic and the tippyverse can't learn technology.

Yes. You read that right. The Tippyverse vs. the Culture, in a no holds barred bilateral beatdown. Go.

[Myshlaevsky]

Tippyverse wins. They're not really equal.

[golentan]

I don't know. I'm inclined to say that "Whoever shows up in the other's skies first" wins. The tippyverses' reliance on antimagic defenses could cripple their initial response to ships that could individually burn their worlds to a cinder.

And the Culture has way more ships.

And the tippyverse would need time to research any anti-galaxy weapons. Which they could possibly pull off with demi-planes in seconds, but again both sides have the ability to reach each other by non-duplicatable means.

So I'm inclined to say either the culture wins in the first round, the tippyverse wins in the second round, or we settle in for a protracted slog with colonization wars and casualties in the quadrillions.

[Eldan]

Technically, since a Wall of Force is indistructible by physical means and not retro-engineerable, wouldn't that mean that the Tippyverse can't be touched by weapons?
Of course, I don't know much about the culture. They might well have teleporting weapons. Against which anti-teleport magic probably won't help.

[kamikasei]

Tippyesque epic mages are effectively Sublimed as far as the Culture's concerned, except that they have physical dependencies that are essentially irrelevant because they're inaccessible to the Culture. So yes, the guys who can research a zero XP, zero-time version of "gridfire the bejesus out of every Culture orbital and GSV simultaneously" are going to be the victors.

(Eldan: the Culture does have teleporting weapons, yes.)

[Emperor Tippy]

How does magic and technology interact (does a spell that blocks teleportation stop Culture teleportation as well)?

And yeah, a single epic wizard could do this on his own, myverse could do it without any real problem.

I have created epic spells that can produce entire armies where each individual is fully capable of wiping out entire solar systems at will and can do so all day. As in fully erase the Solar System from the universe, it is completely disintegrated.

[Eldan]

Ah. Still.
In the first post you said that the Tippies can't access the resources of other planes. What exactly does that include?
No summoned creatures and chain-gate-mindrape, I guess. What about energy conjuration spells such as the orbs, which technically also comes from other planes. What about Teleport, which goes through the astral plane? Undead? Healing?

[Oslecamo]

Tippyesque epic mages are effectively Sublimed as far as the Culture's concerned, except that they have physical dependencies that are essentially irrelevant because they're inaccessible to the Culture. So yes, the guys who can research a zero XP, zero-time version of "gridfire the bejesus out of every Culture orbital and GSV simultaneously" are going to be the victors.

Even the culture has limits. Tippyverse has no limits, thanks to the epic spell rules.

Get a single whole planet doing casting ritual. How much bonus do you gain for 6 billion helpers again? The resulting possible spells would be insanely powerfull.





(Eldan: the Culture does have teleporting weapons, yes.)
But they aren't instant. Big diference. You can sit at the other side of the cvilization teleport tunnel and shoot them as they come out.

They only managed to win the last war because their oponents didn't know they could bring a planet via teleport. And it took them weeks for them to prepare that trick.

Tippyverse on the other hand has celerity

But they really don't need it. Mindblanck alone will make the lensman go to a corner and cry.


And yes, typpyverse is used to dealing with nonmagic treats, as every caster seems to live in complete paranoia of fighters and dedicates at least half their resources to countering them.

What this thread should be:
Typpiverse vs Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann:smallbiggrin:

[kamikasei]

Hmmm. I skimmed over the rules initially.

1) The Culture doesn't occupy multiple galaxies. They're native to the Milky Way but don't control it by any means (they're one of many Involveds and not the most powerful, even before you get in to the god-like Sublimeds), have a presence in both Magellanic Clouds and presumably other attendent dwarfs, and have an expedition en route to Andromeda which hasn't yet reached it. Their FTL becomes slower in the void between galaxies than over interstellar distances, so intergalactic colonization is impractical for them.

2) Since epic-level wizardry kind of depends on extraplanar resources not merely to be effective but to have anything worthwhile to do, you'll need to be very specific about what they can and can't do. This may constitute an enormous nerf.


Even the culture has limits. Tippyverse has no limits, thanks to the epic spell rules.

Get a single whole planet doing casting ritual. How much bonus do you gain for 6 billion helpers again? The resulting spell

This sounds like you're disagreeing with me, but I don't see how - you don't appear to actually be contradicting me. Am I just misreading your tone?


But they aren't instant. Big diference. You can sit at the other side of the cvilization teleport tunnel and shoot them as they come out.

They only managed to win the last war because their oponents didn't know they could bring a planet via teleport. And it took them weeks for them to prepare that trick.

...Are you sure you're talking about the Culture? They don't use "teleport tunnels", displacement is effectively instantaneous, and I have no idea what your talk about teleporting planets refers to (they won the Idiran War by beating the Idirans and eventually subverting their planetary AI once they had the system beseiged).

Oh, wait:


But they really don't need it. Mindblanck alone will make the lensman go to a corner and cry.

Aaaaah. This is not about the Lensman books. At least, I'm assuming it's supposed to be about the Culture from Iain M Banks' novels.

[Oslecamo]

2) Since epic-level wizardry kind of depends on extraplanar resources not merely to be effective but to have anything worthwhile to do, you'll need to be very specific about what they can and can't do. This may constitute an enormous nerf.

A minor incovenience. You can still craft traps for infinite basic resources, wich gets you infinite minions, wich gets you absurdly powerfull epic spells.

Craft your infinite army of sealed airships with bottles of air and spell turrets and go to town!

Culture=/=civilization: Ups, my bad. Anyway, unless this "culture" can get infinite resources and manipulate time to their leisure, they're still screwed.

What really gives the victory to the Typperse is the epic spell rules. You can do anything with them, as long as you have enough minions to boost your spellcraft checks.

And all of the D&D seting combined is surely a hell lot of minions.

[kamikasei]

kamikasei:Ups, my bad. Anyway, unless this "culture" can get infinite resources and manipulate time to their leisure, they're still screwed.

Indeed, as I said. The Culture are very powerful in a sci-fi setting but they're limited by physics and their starting position is of a Kardashev <3 civilization.

[Eldan]

Well... no extraplanar resources means 80% of all conjuration is out. Also every spell that needs positive or negative energy, except when it's on evocation. As I said above:
Teleport? Out. Etherealness? Out. Ghosts? Out. The undead? Out. Golems? Use elemental spirits. Out. And so on. Basically, you have cut just about everything that's really strong in magic out.

[Oslecamo]

Teleport? Out. Etherealness? Out. Ghosts? Out. The undead? Out. Golems? Use elemental spirits. Out. And so on. Basically, you have cut just about everything that's really strong in magic out.

Your optimization-fu is weak.

Celerity? Still in. Scrying? Still in. Force effects? Still in. Infinite loops? Still in. Homunculuses and other obscure constructs wich don't need an elemental? Still in. Illusions? Still in! Animated objects? Still in!

Polymorph? STILL IN!

Also, fear the commoner railguns, as D&D creatures have amazing reflexes!:smallbiggrin:

Or blot out the civilization's suns with chickens!:smalltongue:

[Eldan]

Okay, okay. Not everything strong. I was exaggeratig, of course.

But how do mages make an intergalactic civilisation without Teleport? FTL epic fly spells?

[kamikasei]

Make an epic teleport that fits in abjuration (it protects you from the tedium of travel).

[Emperor Tippy]

Even assuming that any spell that involves the other planes is out, the tippyverse still wins. You can create epic versions of those spells that don't use other planes.

And don't forget the time shenanigans that the tippyverse can get up to if they want. Teleport Through Time comes to mind. When combined with a thought bottle and mind rape you can effectively level yourself up to an arbitrairly high level in no time at all.

[Eldan]

One could argue that these effects use the temporal plane, but that's grasping for straws. I also didn't factor in epic non-planar versions. So, agreed, Tippyverse wins even harder than I thought.

Next question: who is a match for the tippyverse?

[GoC]

Next question: who is a match for the tippyverse?

Noone. IIRC thanks to the planar bubble spells/abilities and genesis they can change the rules of other universes and their own. This means that not even TTGL can beat them as they'd just change the rules so spiral power doesn't exist and reverse awesome to be equivalent to lame.

[chiasaur11]

Let's see:

DEATH: Someone stripped him of his powers and sent his replacement to kill him.

It didn't go well for them. He can be summoned by Wizards, but it's more common courtesy.

Pun-Pun: You worship the RAW? Well. That was probably a mistake.

The Winslow: Hi!

[Emperor Tippy]

The Downstreamers probably.

[golentan]

No extraplanar resources basically just meant that the tippyverse has no extraplanar colonies or allies. Just the mortals and what they can conjure (I didn't mean to strip them of much of their best stuff).

The multiple galaxies was to make up for the tippyverse having multiple prime materials (the contradictions there hurt my head, but you know what I mean).

Again though, I think the scale of the culture gives them a benefit. Especially if neither side is prepared or both are. Yes, the tippyverse can crank up to a full scale war footing which sunders solar systems. There are a lot of bleeping solar systems. And yes, they can blow up galaxies. The culture can survive indefinitely. Outside of any external physical requirements (they avoid suns). Same as the tippyverse. They have a population base of trillions, with superhuman intelligence and resources. And they usually like to work by convincing other sides to stop shooting at them and start shooting at the enemy.

The assumption is that either side can reach anywhere the other side can by non-transparent means. So yes, an anti-teleport zone would fail to exclude teleport tech. And the culture could reach demiplanes (maybe not enter them, but spamming antimatter into one would probably kill residents the first few times).

I don't see this as being a slam dunk for either side, but that's why I formed the thread.

[Emperor Tippy]

Let's put it this way, I have created epic spells that give me an army of totally loyal CR 100+ creatures capable of disintegrating entire solar systems on a whim that can double in size every round.

Round 1: Create the first Avatar (what I named them), have the avatar use it's Ex ability to spawn another avatar.
Round 2: Dismiss the first avatar as it is permanent and not instantaneous (meaning that it can be dispelled), have the Avatar spawn.
Round 3: 4 Avatar's
Round 4: 8 Avatar's
Round 5: 16 Avatar's
Round 6: 32 Avatar's
Round 7: 64 Avatar's
Round 8: 128 Avatar's
Round 9: 256 Avatar's
Round 10: 512 Avatar's
Round 11: 1024 Avatar's
Round 12: 2048 Avatar's
Round 13: 4096 Avatar's
Round 14: 8192 Avatar's
Round 15: 16,384 Avatar's
Round 16: 32,768 Avatar's
Round 17: 65,536 Avatar's
Round 18: 131,072 Avatar's
Round 19: 262,144 Avatar's
Round 20: 524,288 Avatar's

In 2 minutes I can create an army of over half a million CR 100 creatures that are totally immune to anything and everything that you can throw at them. I can quickly reach a point where I have more individuals capable of going toe to toe with a GSV than the Culture has sentient beings in it.

In 3 minutes I have over 500 million Avatars. Within 5 minutes I have over a quadrillion.

I am fully capable of having a large enough force within 24 hours to fully disintegrate the entire galaxy all in one go and without leaving any empty space for ships to hide in.

[hamishspence]

and where are the extra casters needed to get the mitigating factors needed to cast the spell?

Epic spells generally require a boatload of other people helping you cast the spell as well- which means they need to be informed so they can start participating in the ritual.

All this takes time.

So what are the details of the spell- and does it apply mitigating factors correctly, and have all the mitigating factors for the spell been listed in at least 1 WoTC source?

[Poison_Fish]

I remember yon epic days of LotR and 40K versus threads.

I'm going to stick to my old standby's from those days. Exalted and the Nasuverse tend to say "no u" to D&D and other cheese with their own.

[Zeta Kai]

I have created epic spells that can produce entire armies where each individual is fully capable of wiping out entire solar systems at will and can do so all day. As in fully erase the Solar System from the universe, it is completely disintegrated.

Care to post such a frightening Avatar-generating uber-spell?

[ZeroNumerous]

Next question: who is a match for the tippyverse?

Exalted: "You made an epic spell that destroys everything? Cool. I perfect parry it."

[Oslecamo]

Exalted: "You made an epic spell that destroys everything? Cool. I perfect parry it."

Good. Now parry the next 999.999 will yah? An exalted's essence is nothing compared with the overkill of the tippyverse.

[Shadowcaller]

Good. Now parry the next 999.999 will yah? An exalted's essence is nothing compared with the overkill of the tippyverse.

Eh, forum god-modders beat them both (as well as over-zealous fans for each universe).

[Oslecamo]

Eh, forum god-modders beat them both (as well as over-zealous fans for each universe).

But god-modders smite the hell out of over-zealous fans!:smalltongue:

[Prime32]

Noone. IIRC thanks to the planar bubble spells/abilities and genesis they can change the rules of other universes and their own. This means that not even TTGL can beat them as they'd just change the rules so spiral power doesn't exist and reverse awesome to be equivalent to lame.Tried that. Didn't work. Spiral Power is basically DM fiat, which is the mortal enemy of the Tippyverse.

[Oslecamo]

Tried that. Didn't work. Spiral Power is basically DM fiat, which is the mortal enemy of the Tippyverse.

Yet, the Tippyverse exists because they mastered the player power, wich if used properly can and will override DM fiat.

Spiral power is dead in the Tippyverse. Wizard players did it. Probably with snacks bribery.

[Poison_Fish]

Good. Now parry the next 999.999 will yah? An exalted's essence is nothing compared with the overkill of the tippyverse.

That's cool, I'll just casually brush my hair aside, take a sigh that would make hardened barbarians cry at my slight annoyance, and go first before anyone can do anything else.

Who needs to be limited by a pool when you can stunt it all back? Who needs to take over 9000 attacks when you can just eliminate the problem of the first one? If we are gonna cheese a system, we'll cheese every system.

[ZeroNumerous]

Good. Now parry the next 999.999 will yah? An exalted's essence is nothing compared with the overkill of the tippyverse.

Essence 6+.

Scene length perfect parry.

Plus, you know, you destroyed yourself when you destroyed everything. :smallamused:

[golentan]

In 2 minutes I can create an army of over half a million CR 100 creatures that are totally immune to anything and everything that you can throw at them. I can quickly reach a point where I have more individuals capable of going toe to toe with a GSV than the Culture has sentient beings in it.

Which you've burned an epic spell slot and taken several minutes to do, during which time the culture can burn the multiverse around you. The avatars might not be damageable, but if they could be contained by singularities (by either the gravity or the time dilating effects) mission accomplished.

Again, both sides are possessed of such awesome forces it's hard to judge. And with respect, my liege, you are hardly unbiased on the subject matter at hand. There are not an infinite number of epic level wizards, with epic spell slots, any more than there are an infinite number of GSVs. And it seems unlikely that those who do exist have the sort of multiverse shattering spells needed for this battle readied beforehand, as it would either be a MAD policy against other tippyverse states (implying a non-united front the culture could exploit), or a nihilist who would have already unmade the tippyverse (hopefully weeded out before they could gain epic spells). Demiplane cheese allows the tippyverse to conjure virtually infinite armies from planar fortresses, or fire off galaxy shattering blasts, true. But if the planes can be reached and made untenable to casters this has limited practicality, and I refuse to accept that in the rules for two separate universes there is anything that is invulnerable to everything.

The tippyverse can win this war with the element of surprise, as easy as squashing an insect with a magic missile. The culture could do the very same with the initiative. And in the event that neither has it, I think it would devolve to mass produced armies of destruction shattering upon each other until the tippyverse slowly wins by dint of not needing any raw materials or production time. I feel the culture would seek to avoid this by eliminating the enemy by dint of superhuman intellect and reflexes before this became a threat, and it's not clear they would succeed if the tippyverse has appropriately planned (which is key; but very, very difficult as any batman knows) contingencies.

[The_JJ]

I think Special Circumstances would win this one. :smalltongue:

Tippyverse is more or less 'let's strip common sense or anything, you know, human out of the equation. Everyone is perfectly 'rational' and understands RAW. RAW is God.'

I think you throw just one or two genderbending, liberated, sexual pheremone factory into that mix and soon you've got the whole place trying to kill each other.

I mean seriously, as overpowered as Contact is, it never really comes out all guns blazing. They use Special Circumstances, and I don't think TippyVerse has an answer to that.

Just imagine:

The Minds discover Tippyverse.
The Minds take 3.2 milliseconds to calculate course of action.

Culture ship (Pop about New York, just for fun) lands in TippyVerse.

Culture people spread their pheremones, do what they do, etc.

Tippyverse Epic Wizard convert creates Pan Universal Love Spell.

And everything is better

[Oslecamo]

Who needs to be limited by a pool when you can stunt it all back? Who needs to take over 9000 attacks when you can just eliminate the problem of the first one? If we are gonna cheese a system, we'll cheese every system.

Fine by me. Tippiverse can surely get a way of doing several imediate actions per turn. You can go in 1st place in iniative, Tippyverse will go in zero position. There's spells to assure that wizards are never suprised, and plenty of spells to bend time to your will.

So here's how it goes:
Tippyverse twists time to go before exalted.

Exalted declare perfect parry, burning essence yet.

Tippyverse uses an imediate action from a minion/cheese, to throw another exalted-killing nuke.

Exalted perfect parries again, but since the other parry still didn't happen, you cannot stunt it, and you cannot regain your essence.

Eventualy, exalted will run out of parries before the tippyverse runs out of immediate cheeses.

Exalted dies, then it parries everything else, regains his essence, but cannot come back to life, because ressurecting is a no-no in the Exalted world.:smallwink:

Plus, heck, stunting demands that the GM likes your stunt. But the GM is dead. Tippyverse killed him. That's how they rose to power after all.:smalltongue:

[Poison_Fish]

Fine by me. Tippiverse can surely get a way of doing several imediate actions per turn. You can go in 1st place in iniative, Tippyverse will go in zero position. There's spells to assure that wizards are never suprised, and plenty of spells to bend time to your will.

So here's how it goes:
Tippyverse twists time to go before exalted.

Exalted declare perfect parry, burning essence yet.

Tippyverse uses an imediate action from a minion/cheese, to throw another exalted-killing nuke.

Exalted perfect parries again, but since the other parry still didn't happen, you cannot stunt it, and you cannot regain your essence.

Eventualy, exalted will run out of parries before the tippyverse runs out of immediate cheeses.

Exalted dies, then it parries everything else, regains his essence, but cannot come back to life, because ressurecting is a no-no in the Exalted world.:smallwink:

Plus, heck, stunting demands that the GM likes your stunt. But the GM is dead. Tippyverse killed him. That's how they rose to power after all.:smalltongue:

I don't think you understand. They go FIRST. It doesn't matter in initiative, they are going before you even make your first thought on how to deal with them, because your too blinded by their pretty hair. Even though you are blinded by the immaculate hair, your not even aware of their presence, as every cheesed scry that attempts to locate returns with ERROR 404, does not exist. They've wrapped themselves in a cloak made of multiple universes and virgins tears, which as we all know, magic is less effective against virgin tears. The only thing a Tippyverse wizard knows before the end is they are already dead. Then their head explodes. Then the rest of the non-epic spellcasters of the universe becomes the exalts followers in the now universe spanning religion. A new golden age has dawned upon the Tippyverse, where 1st level commoners are no longer slain by wizards house cats. Where young men wishing to become fighters are no longer target practice for bad cheesed used of polymorph other. Where children can play once again on the streets without fear of stepping on a grumpy old mans beard that hides magical wands in it. Where bums can once again beg in alley ways as they are no longer filled with explosive runes. Cheesed Tyranny is at an end. MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Besides, this is cheesed Exalted. All stunts are 3 dice stunts. And yes, if it's cheesed exalted, they can perfectly attack you while your perfectly unaware of their very presence, and so you perfectly die. Or they can perfectly make you fall in love with them. But I can be even more specific. In the Tippyverse, it's not the GM who is dead, it's the DM. This is D&D after all. To bad the Storyteller is around.

Let's face it, a tippyverse wizard is nothing more then a lesser boss to an Exalt. A mid-boss if you will. They'll never get beyond that.

[lobablob]

I don't think you understand. They go FIRST. It doesn't matter in initiative, they are going before you even make your first thought on how to deal with them, because your too blinded by their pretty hair.

That doesn't really sound like a sensible and unbiased position. I think you need something a bit stronger to overcome a mechanical reason that ensures the wizard always goes first and is never surprised.



Let's face it, a tippyverse wizard is nothing more then a lesser boss to an Exalt. A mid-boss if you will. They'll never get beyond that.

Isn't the whole point of a tippyverse wizard to abuse the rules (particularly the epic spell rules) to have any level of power they want with no limits? I don't know the exact power level of exalted, but I don't see how a being of limitless power can be considered beatable, let alone a mid or low level boss.

[Terraoblivion]

Exalted has success at a given action that cannot be prevented as a fundamental aspect of the metaphysics of the setting as well as the rules. Anyone who only reaches an arbitrarily high number loses to this. Period. It is just the way Exalted works, no hyperbole involved.

[Eldan]

Yes, but DnD also has a few absolute spells at high levels, like the mentioned "never surprised".

[Poison_Fish]

Yes, but DnD also has a few absolute spells at high levels, like the mentioned "never surprised".

Exalted has a cascade system of "near-perfects", but the penultimate is "perfect" which trumps all other close descriptions of "always". So, again, I'm mechanically responding to the Tippyverse's mechanics. We've had this argument two years ago in fact, and again, D&D can't compete.

Not only that, but the only actual "cheese" I've thrown in here has been that the storyteller always gives 3 die stunts. Everything else I've described can be done with a single mid-range solar.

So, sorry lobablob, it actually is stronger then D&D's mechanical basis.

And Tippyverse wizards would like to think their unbeatable, but they are still stuck within the confines of poorly written epic spell rules. They are also still very squishy wizards. Granted, a non-starting exalt would look at a fighter of similar epic level as something just as squishy.

On top of that, Exalt's are better Batmans then wizards. They are like a council of Batmans in one body.

[ZeroNumerous]

A bunch of stuff about wasted Essence

I don't think you quite understand what a scene length perfect parry is. For an entire scene, you perfect parry anything. You spend just the initial amount of essence. No further essence expenditure is necessary. Scene length perfect parries are why no one fights Deathlords.

Here's how it actually goes down:

Essence 6+ Exalt: I initiate combat. I guard and let them take the first shot.

The Entirety of the Tippyverse: DIE! *Casts Epic Spell: Kill Exalt.*

Essence 6+ Exalt: No. *Perfectly parries everyone.*


Yes, but DnD also has a few absolute spells at high levels, like the mentioned "never surprised".

Since Exalted favors defense, lets say the wizard is indeed not surprised. So our Essence 6+ Exalt pops his scene length perfect parry. The wizard's entire offense is now negated, no questions asked and no answers given. Every single attack from every single attacker is instantly rendered impotent.


That doesn't really sound like a sensible and unbiased position. I think you need something a bit stronger to overcome a mechanical reason that ensures the wizard always goes first and is never surprised.

There's a stealth charm that makes you perfectly undetectable. The only way to defend against it is with an awareness charm that converts every unexpected attack into an expected one.


Isn't the whole point of a tippyverse wizard to abuse the rules (particularly the epic spell rules) to have any level of power they want with no limits? I don't know the exact power level of exalted, but I don't see how a being of limitless power can be considered beatable, let alone a mid or low level boss.

Limitless? Exalts kill minor gods at 0 XP. No, limitless power is indeed a low-level boss. An Essence 10 Exalt quite literally ignores mortals. Because they're mortals they lack rights in Exalted. There's an Abyssal Charm that says, paraphrased: If you're mortal, I can tell you to screw off and there's nothing you can do about it. Tippyverse wizards are not even a mid-boss, they're just a mook compared to that.

[hamishspence]

The gods in a D&D universe apparently "fear the casters of epic spells" and these casters aren't implied to be on Tippy levels.

But then, I'm not sure how D&D gods stack up next to Tippy Wizards, or next to Exalted beings.

[Emperor Tippy]

You have fundamentally incompatible mechanics.

The action systems are just different.

And if you want to get into no limits fallacies (perfect parries for example), D&D has them as well. If my wizard sits inside of a permanent prismatic sphere and only acts through his Astral Projection your exalted character, no matter how powerful, can't touch him.

Unless you can cast disjunction or have a rod of cancellation, you literally can not, in any way, effect what is inside of the sphere.

There are a good chunk of spells that are equally no limits without system specific counters.
----

And you do realize that even though it's generally not thrown about, Manipulate Form is something that can be used without any real problem and can add abilities like "Any exalted creature that ever has been, ever will be, or is within the same multiverse as me, ceases to exist and all of their actions that they have ever taken are totally negated. This ability works no matter what charms the exalted creature has."

That is a RAW legal ability. Sure, no one really uses it but if you can throw around the kind of no limits cheese that you are talking about, so can D&D.

[golentan]

While the exalted discussion is interesting, could I ask that it not take place in this thread? It is irrelevant to the matter at hand (tippy vs. culture), and as long as we already have some tippyverse vs. everything knockoff threads might as well do the same for exalted.

Now watch as my thread whithers and dies.

Special circumstances might win the war for the culture. Then again they might get splatted on arrival: they do tend to rely on longer term plans (measurable in at least "minutes" or "hours"), and this is again a war where both sides can disintegrate the enemy in seconds of the start of conflict.

[hamishspence]

And you do realize that even though it's generally not thrown about, Manipulate Form is something that can be used without any real problem and can add abilities like "Any exalted creature that ever has been, ever will be, or is within the same multiverse as me, ceases to exist and all of their actions that they have ever taken are totally negated. This ability works no matter what charms the exalted creature has."

That is a RAW legal ability. Sure, no one really uses it but if you can throw around the kind of no limits cheese that you are talking about, so can D&D.


And... Pun-pun is invoked.


Manipulate Form is something that can be used without any real problem and can add abilities like "Any exalted creature that ever has been, ever will be, or is within the same multiverse as me, ceases to exist and all of their actions that they have ever taken are totally negated. This ability works no matter what charms the exalted creature has."

Which is highly dependant on "rules as not specified" and makes the assumption that "can add an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability" means "can add anything the player can conceive"

[The_JJ]

Well yeah, if they detect each other simultaniously and decide to strike, it's game over.

But if they merely detect each other first instead...

I mean, imagine the divination spell... "There soon will come a flying ship, yea, and it shall be carrying a hot [insert preferred gender here] to sex you up."

I mean, all those Cerelity, Contigency spells... meaningless. Wuv is not an attack, it isn't bad for you... I mean, both sides win.

All those Venerable Grey Elfs get laid, and the Culture add Epic Magic to it's arsenal of toys.

[Poison_Fish]

You have fundamentally incompatible mechanics.

The action systems are just different.

And if you want to get into no limits fallacies (perfect parries for example), D&D has them as well. If my wizard sits inside of a permanent prismatic sphere and only acts through his Astral Projection your exalted character, no matter how powerful, can't touch him.

Unless you can cast disjunction or have a rod of cancellation, you literally can not, in any way, effect what is inside of the sphere.

There are a good chunk of spells that are equally no limits without system specific counters.
----

And you do realize that even though it's generally not thrown about, Manipulate Form is something that can be used without any real problem and can add abilities like "Any exalted creature that ever has been, ever will be, or is within the same multiverse as me, ceases to exist and all of their actions that they have ever taken are totally negated. This ability works no matter what charms the exalted creature has."

That is a RAW legal ability. Sure, no one really uses it but if you can throw around the kind of no limits cheese that you are talking about, so can D&D.

I perfectly penetrate the sphere with an arrow that no barrier can negate, kthx.

Wyld protection prana, your reality altering spells are no longer effective, kthx.

I said before, I'm not actually using no limits cheese yet. I'm still at essence 5.

[hamishspence]

Irresistable force meets immovable object, eh? :smallamused:

[Emperor Tippy]

I perfectly penetrate the sphere with an arrow that no barrier can negate, kthx.

Wyld protection prana, your reality altering spells are no longer effective, kthx.

I said before, I'm not actually using no limits cheese yet. I'm still at essence 5.

As I said, fundamentally incompatable mechanics.

Prismatic Sphere: "destroys all objects and effects"

You have 1 ability that says it can penetrate anything and another ability that says it stops anything. It is an impossible to resolve situation.

---
As for the Culture, even special circumstance will get screwed. Without a way to block divination's and future knowledge (as in "here are my memories of the next thousand years"), the Culture simply can't catch the wizards by surprise.

[The_JJ]

Well yeah, if they detect each other simultaniously and decide to strike, it's game over.

But if they merely detect each other first instead...

I mean, imagine the divination spell... "There soon will come a flying ship, yea, and it shall be carrying a hot [insert preferred gender here] to sex you up."

I mean, all those Cerelity, Contigency spells... meaningless. Wuv is not an attack, it isn't bad for you... I mean, both sides win.

All those Venerable Grey Elfs get laid, and the Culture add Epic Magic to it's arsenal of toys.

Soooo... they remeber the chick with the genetically engineered double joints and the pheremones and how cool free love was.

[hamishspence]

As I said, fundamentally incompatable mechanics.

Prismatic Sphere: "destroys all objects and effects"

You have 1 ability that says it can penetrate anything and another ability that says it stops anything. It is an impossible to resolve situation.


Not really. Even within D&D "Divine Blast" (Deities and Demigods) punches straight through a prismatic sphere like it wasn't there- destroying every layer- and going through to strike the target.

It is very hard for even a Tippy-wizard to be immune to the powers of a god, without becoming one itself.

And Solars and the like are arguably just the Exalted setting's take on divinities- which exist in the D&D verse.

Maybe there should be a new thread- if there hasn't been several already- Exaltedverse vs Tippyverse.

[Emperor Tippy]

Not really. Even within D&D "Divine Blast" (Deities and Demigods) punches straight through a prismatic sphere like it wasn't there- destroying every layer- and going through to strike the target.

It is very hard for even a Tippy-wizard to be immune to the powers of a god, without becoming one itself.

And Solars and the like are arguably just the Exalted setting's take on divinities- which exist in the D&D verse.

Maybe there should be a new thread- if there hasn't been several already- Exaltedverse vs Tippyverse.

And Divine Blast specifically says that it penetrates and destroys Prismatic Spheres. Specific trumps general.

We have two general abilities, unless the exalted ability says that is specifically penetrates prismatic spheres.

[Milskidasith]

This whole Exalted Vs. D&D thing reminds me of when people would argue over which RPG was stronger, and then they'd justify things with statements like "FF characters have a damage cap of 9999 they reach easily, Chrono Trigger characters have a damage cap of 999 they don't reach easily (IIRC), so FF is obviously stronger."

Once again, it's two invincible groups against each other. Neither of them can win.

[SmartAlec]

Note: if life for the Tippyverse is actually better if they are absorbed by the Culture, then those scrying/divination/future memory spells may backfire into convincing some mages to just go with the flow and surrender.

Unless there's some compelling reason why they wouldn't join the Culture, of course.

[hamishspence]

And Divine Blast specifically says that it penetrates and destroys Prismatic Spheres. Specific trumps general.

We have two general abilities, unless the exalted ability says that is specifically penetrates prismatic spheres.

Specific trumps general is a D&D rule- and pretty meaningless when we are talking about two separate settings.

If, for example, its Trek Vs Wars, the issue isn't "rules", but "energy" - which side manipulates energy on the largest scale, and thus, which sides weapons would be expected to punch through the shields of the other side.

In the same way, Exalted can be seen as an alternate way of doing, what Deities and Demigods did- statting out divine-level beings and their powers.

Thus, a blast from an Exalted solar, is equivalent to a Divine Blast from Deities and Demigods, and thus can be expected to do the same sort of thing.

Appealing to "incompatible rules-sets" seems a bit pointless here.

[D_Lord]

And then the Far Realm things get out because the tippyvise wizards died and they turn both the Exalted and tippyvise into the Far Realm and the Exalted go crazy or just die because some Far Realm things Gods can't even hurt.
Let the cheese ruase your nums into horse blocks!

[chiasaur11]

And then the Far Realm things get out because the tippyvise wizards died and they turn both the Exalted and tippyvise into the Far Realm and the Exalted go crazy or just die because some Far Realm things Gods can't even hurt.
Let the cheese ruase your nums into horse blocks!

Coulda sworn things pretty much like the far realms fall right within standard Exalted opponents.

To take down exalted, you'd need more firepower than that.

Granny Weatherwax would work.

[ZeroNumerous]

You have 1 ability that says it can penetrate anything and another ability that says it stops anything. It is an impossible to resolve situation.

Except Exalted can resolve that. A perfect defense stops a perfect attack. A perfect attack defeats any non-perfect defense. Your Prismatic Sphere is not a perfect defense and thusly is defeated. Incompatible mechanics or not, the issue is raw power. And epic wizards--while invincible overdeities in D&D--are like minnows trying to kill sharks when compared to Exalted.


And then the Far Realm things get out because the tippyvise wizards died and they turn both the Exalted and tippyvise into the Far Realm and the Exalted go crazy or just die because some Far Realm things Gods can't even hurt.

Exalted has it's own Far Realms. It's called the Wyld. And the things in the Wyld are so horrific that they don't merely melt your mind. Their mere presence literally unravels your existence as a being of Creation. They melt your shape, soul and fate. Your Far Realms just causes insanity? Ha. Wussies. :smallamused:

[D_Lord]

Exalted has it's own Far Realms. It's called the Wyld. And the things in the Wyld are so horrific that they don't merely melt your mind. Their mere presence literally unravels your existence as a being of Creation. They melt your shape, soul and fate. Your Far Realms just causes insanity? Ha. Wussies. :smallamused:[/QUOTE]

That is the Far Realm. Not really much difference between them.

[Milskidasith]

Except Exalted can resolve that. A perfect defense stops a perfect attack. A perfect attack defeats any non-perfect defense. Your Prismatic Sphere is not a perfect defense and thusly is defeated. Incompatible mechanics or not, the issue is raw power. And epic wizards--while invincible overdeities in D&D--are like minnows trying to kill sharks when compared to Exalted.

How is it not a perfect defense? Because it doesn't say "perfect defense" in it? Or because it has an exception?

If so, is Temporal Stasis a perfect defense?

If it isn't, then you are using the same "incompatible mechanics" argument that has been pointed out; if something in D&D automatically stops every effect, good or bad, from affecting you, you can't just say "Exalted is better" or "It doesn't say perfect defense, so it isn't" and claim it works. Both of them can literally be invincible from everything, forever.

[Deadmeat.GW]

It is not a perfect defense as there is at least one thing that completely ignores it...

Simple basic rule for 'Perfect Defenses' is nothing bypasses it.

Ergo, it is ignored by 'Perfect Attacks'.

Now what I wonder is if there is a way you can polymorph as a wizard into a Exalted character and then cheese yourself up to unlimited level a la Pun-Pun :).

[Oslecamo]

In the same way, Exalted can be seen as an alternate way of doing, what Deities and Demigods did- statting out divine-level beings and their powers.

Thus, a blast from an Exalted solar, is equivalent to a Divine Blast from Deities and Demigods, and thus can be expected to do the same sort of thing.

Appealing to "incompatible rules-sets" seems a bit pointless here.

Tippies can ascend to godhood. Even better, they can ascend to actual godhood.

Exalteds can still be fragged by regular weapons and numbers. A great D&D deity, not so much.

The tippies can become greater deities and create new planes of existence. Exalteds can save villages and watch their world slowly beind destroyed, as far as the fluff goes.

Hmmm, I wonder wich of their divinities is greater...

Really, all the Tippyverse needs to do is send his army of infinite minions. Even if the Exalted side claims they have a benevolent GM wich grants them infinite essentia, they'll spend the rest of eternity spaming perfect defenses just to save their asses from the mass produced tippy monsters, while Tippy wizards can go out to their businesses.

[Poison_Fish]

Essence 6+, exalts become gods. They can kill gods before that. They can kill the creators of the gods in fact, which is killing basic concepts in reality. Regular weapons stop being a threat by essence 4 depending on your build. Reality altering attacks stop being a threat, ironically, also at essence 4. Creating your own reality, essence 5. Being "safe" in any reality as opposed to just deflecting reality, I think, is essence 3. Exalts are designed as concept killers, god slayers, etc.

Oh, and endless minions means endless counterattacks, passively, so they can still do actions while endless minions die around them.

[Oslecamo]

Essence 6+, exalts become gods. They can kill gods before that. They can kill the creators of the gods in fact, which is killing basic concepts in reality. Regular weapons stop being a threat by essence 4 depending on your build. Reality altering attacks stop being a threat, ironically, also at essence 4. Creating your own reality, essence 5. Being "safe" in any reality as opposed to just deflecting reality, I think, is essence 3. Exalts are designed as concept killers, god slayers, etc.

Except that in Exalted, what you call "gods" are actualy sissies that let themselves be mugged by normal mortal thugs as far as the Exalted fluff goes. They barely have any special powers. They are at best comparable to D&D monster of CR 8 or less, with some very few exceptions.

And those exceptions are the ones wich eat exalteds for breakfast, like the unconquered sun.

The elemental primordials were just a bunch of idiots wich couldn't see their own creations rebelling and marching against them untill they were being slaughtered by the droves by their own weapons.

Plus any exalted-created reality is really limited when compared to the plane creation power of nonepic wizards, let alone ones ascended to godhood and using tippy cheese.





Oh, and endless minions means endless counterattacks, passively, so they can still do actions while endless minions die around them.
If the minions stand still, he still has to lose time hacking trough them. Only to see another minion use a readied action to take the place of the fallen one.

[Poison_Fish]

Except that in Exalted, what you call "gods" are actualy sissies that let themselves be mugged by normal mortal thugs as far as the Exalted fluff goes. They barely have any special powers. They are at best comparable to D&D monster of CR 8 or less, with some very few exceptions.

And those exceptions are the ones wich eat exalteds for breakfast, like the unconquered sun.

Those are called little gods. They are little for a reason. Major gods are actually fairly common. High powered elementals of the courts as well. So, no, your just wrong on your information there.


The elemental primordials were just a bunch of idiots wich couldn't see their own creations rebelling and marching against them untill they were being slaughtered by the droves by their own weapons.

Again, wrong. First, the primordials had a lot of safe guards in place for their creations. They weren't slaughtered in droves, only 3-4 "died". And they can't truly die, just change in concept. The "dead" became the malfeans. They also weren't killed by their own weapons. They were 'killed' by something they themselves did not create.


Plus any exalted-created reality is really limited when compared to the plane creation power of nonepic wizards, let alone ones ascended to godhood and using tippy cheese.

Exalted cheese can reform another chunk of the wyld(or creation) to roughly the same extent as Tippy wizards. Exalted not-cheese is well beyond non-epic wizards power in creating their own reality.


If the minions stand still, he still has to lose time hacking trough them. Only to see another minion use a readied action to take the place of the fallen one.

It's not like they can't just walk past them or eliminate them in one excellently described swing. They are nothing but extra's to the exalt. I mean, if you really want to deal with a Herman Melville level description of your 'supposed' infinite number of extra's dying, sure. That doesn't stop the inevitable end of the mid-bosses of your world laying in a pool of their own blood.

[ZeroNumerous]

How is it not a perfect defense? Because it doesn't say "perfect defense" in it? Or because it has an exception?

If so, is Temporal Stasis a perfect defense?

Because it can be defeated. Prismatic sphere/walls can be disassembled, but a perfect defense cannot. Temporal Statis would be a perfect defense, but you're rendered incapable of doing anything inside it so the point is moot.

A perfect defense trumps perfect attack every single time. A defense that can be ignored is not perfect.

[Milskidasith]

Temporal Stasis is a perfect defense, so... it's a tie. There are numerous methods to be astrally projecting oneself while in a temporal stasis (and surrounded by a slew of near perfect defenses, with a persistent foresight, or in exalted terms, having constant Perfect Awareness).

So both sides have an ability to do what a completely 100% perfect defense while still retaining their offensive capabilities. At best, we can call it a tie. At worst, we can get into the merits of the fluff where we argue about whether or not Exalted gods are really as strong as the AN rank Gods tippies can easily become, or something similar.

[Poison_Fish]

Temporal Stasis is a perfect defense, so... it's a tie. There are numerous methods to be astrally projecting oneself while in a temporal stasis (and surrounded by a slew of near perfect defenses, with a persistent foresight, or in exalted terms, having constant Perfect Awareness).

So both sides have an ability to do what a completely 100% perfect defense while still retaining their offensive capabilities. At best, we can call it a tie. At worst, we can get into the merits of the fluff where we argue about whether or not Exalted gods are really as strong as the AN rank Gods tippies can easily become, or something similar.

Temporal Stasis is not perfect. Dispell magic gets rid of it. D&D does not have an absolute perfect defense or stop gap.

Like I said, Exalted "No U's" on the whole, are quite literally that. There is nothing you can do save for something of equal power(Another "No U"). Tippy doesn't have equal power, period. There is always an exception in the RAW. No matter how badly you try to interpret it. There is no such exception for Exalted.

As a friend has said, approaching infinity does not beat infinity. Tippies can only approach.

[Haarkla]

Rule 2: The Culture is ... assumed to have one galaxy for each published campaign setting in the dnd universe.

The Tippyverse vs. the Culture, in a no holds barred bilateral beatdown.
With these rules, the Culture wins this one due to weight of numbers.

As Kamikasei says, the Culture doesn't occupy multiple galaxies, it controls a small part of 3 companion galaxies.

I dont think those who say the Tippyverse would win quite understand how big a galaxy actually is.

[GoC]

Incompatible mechanics or not, the issue is raw power.

I do not recall anything in exhalted blowing up the equivalent of quadrillions of planets...
IIRC thanks to the sycronity shuffle it's possible to get infinite actions (and infinite stats and damage) and destroy an arbitrarily large amount of stuff instantaneously.

Actually...

Tippy doesn't have equal power, period.
This cunning argument has convinced me.

[Milskidasith]

I dont think those who say the Tippyverse would win quite understand how big a galaxy actually is.

A galaxy is, assuming our size, 3000 light years wide. Using mitigation, I can get an army large enough to cast a spell that hits 1000 galaxies away, destroying an entire galaxy radius area with, say, 100 million d20 damage plus explosive spell tacked on for the hell of it, in about... 67 rounds or six and two thirds of a minute.

Yes, it's huge. But the tippyverse can, quite literally, blow up galaxies at will.

Also, Exalted has "perfects" true. But that's using their rules. Just by comparing what they've done... Exalts have never, in fact, been able to do anything nearly on the scale of tippies power. Do they have anything that lets them destroy the entire universe, perchance?

[Nerd-o-rama]

A galaxy is, assuming our size, 3000 light years wide.

Drive-by NASA link. (http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980317b.html)

[The_JJ]

Shut up about Exalted. Incompatable systems. No doubt the Exalts can just say 'I perfect parry you destroying the galaxy.'

Or some such.

Anyhoo... yeah. Culture can probably wreck a Tippyverse planet in less then six minutes. Wreck as in destroy with antimatter, gridfire (tapping into space time), or just by dropping a black hole into the damn thing (or the damn thing into a black hole.)

I still say they both win. Culture get's Tippyverse's ridiculousness, and Tippy's enjoy free love.

Then they pimp slap the galaxy.
Don't get me wrong, Tippy's have more raw power, (haha, get it?) but you know what, I don't really care about that. This is the Culture.

[Oslecamo]

Shut up about Exalted. Incompatable systems. No doubt the Exalts can just say 'I perfect parry you destroying the galaxy.'


Small trick here:
1-Extraordinary spell aim galaxy destroy spell to don't include the exalted.
2-Exalted can't perfect defense because technically it isn't an attack on his person.
3-See how the exalted can do stunts now that there is NOTHING around him. Not even air. So, is there any charm to survive in the void? And if there is, can the exalted get out of it?

[Poison_Fish]

Small trick here:
1-Extraordinary spell aim galaxy destroy spell to don't include the exalted.
2-Exalted can't perfect defense because technically it isn't an attack on his person.
3-See how the exalted can do stunts now that there is NOTHING around him. Not even air. So, is there any charm to survive in the void? And if there is, can the exalted get out of it?

You... don't know anything about Exalted, do you?

They can survive in the void of space if they wanted to. Not that such a fail of a spell would work against creation.

They can perfect parry for others. They can punch a spell that's not hitting them, but someone else, out of working. Yes, punch the spell.

Exalts could likely blow up the universe if they wanted. I've said time and time again that I've been dealing with most of the arguments here with mid-range exalted abilities. Power, in terms of essence, scales exponentially. At higher essences, it's reasonable that they could bring about massive amounts of destruction.

But frankly, measuring only destructive power doesn't make them "weaker".

They don't NEED to destroy a universe to answer their problems.


I do not recall anything in exhalted blowing up the equivalent of quadrillions of planets...
IIRC thanks to the sycronity shuffle it's possible to get infinite actions (and infinite stats and damage) and destroy an arbitrarily large amount of stuff instantaneously.

Actually...

This cunning argument has convinced me.

Did you miss the point that approaching infinity ≠ infinity? When I'm saying perfect, I'm not being factitious nor am I using it to describe a process fluff wise. It's perfect as a mechanic, as in there is nothing else that can stop it, even 20 million 20 sided dies that all roll 20's fall apart against it. So, again, approaching infinity ≠ infinity. Your not actually hitting infinity with your math there.

[GoC]

Did you miss the point that approaching infinity ≠ infinity? When I'm saying perfect, I'm not being factitious nor am I using it to describe a process fluff wise. It's perfect as a mechanic, as in there is nothing else that can stop it, even 20 million 20 sided dies that all roll 20's fall apart against it. So, again, approaching infinity ≠ infinity. Your not actually hitting infinity with your math there.
There are infinite damage loops that can then get converted to a stat (str iirc) and from there to all other stats.

EDIT: I checked. No, it's only saves, attack rolls and skill checks. Thankfully skill checks can substitute for more or less anything with the appropriate class abilities.

[Milskidasith]

Yep; Infinity is perfectly obtainable in D&D, and can be done in zero time. As for destroying a universe: is there actually an ability that lets them? Is there an ability that lets them become anything they want to? Move anywhere, instantly? Instantaneously alter everything about themselves? Create infinite amounts of life, all of it with as much power as the original wizard, and all of it able to instantaneously create similarly infinitely powerful creatures?

Just because Exalted has "perfects" and say they are gods doesn't mean that they are, in fact, as perfect as they appear. As far as I can tell, their abilities are, while powerful defensively, limited offensively, and they can't be nearly as varied as wizards; a wizard can be perfect in all ways, while an Exalted cannot be perfect in everything.

Plus, of course, Wizards can gain all of the exalts abilities. A wizard with Scene Long Perfect Parry? Trivial to obtain.

[Poison_Fish]

{Scrubbed}

[Milskidasith]

Even disregarding that, you have still not shown that Exalted can achieve infinite power; infinite blocking, sure, but I haven't seen anything on the scale Epic Magic can do.

As for obtaining exalted powers: It's actually based on the rules, not just me saying they can.

[Poison_Fish]

Even disregarding that, you have still not shown that Exalted can achieve infinite power; infinite blocking, sure, but I haven't seen anything on the scale Epic Magic can do.

They have perfect attacks. Answer completed.


As for obtaining exalted powers: It's actually based on the rules, not just me saying they can.

Rules that you haven't shown.

[Milskidasith]

Perfect attacks, yes. Can they destroy the entire universe? As for the rules I haven't shown: Look up Pun-Pun. He can have any ability from any creature, or any ability he wants. That includes Exalts, and getting Divine Ranks freely.

[Poison_Fish]

Perfect attacks, yes. Can they destroy the entire universe? As for the rules I haven't shown: Look up Pun-Pun. He can have any ability from any creature, or any ability he wants. That includes Exalts, and getting Divine Ranks freely.

I have looked up Pun-Pun. Exalts have a stop gap of being unable to be copied by non exalts. It's not even a matter of what he has, as polymorph can't cover being an Exalt nor cover an exalt shard. All Pun Pun would be copying is a fairly strong human.

But I must say, your idea of power as measured so linearly, it's quite quaint. Why must power only be measured on pure destruction when I can simply cut the individual out of existence? The Exalted don't need to destroy a universe, but they can conceivable can based on high level essence and high level craft making mad science! based doomsday devices.

[Milskidasith]

I have looked up Pun-Pun. Exalts have a stop gab of being unable to be copied by non exalts. It's not even a matter of what he has, as polymorph can't cover being an Exalt.

He can gain any ability, ever. That includes Exalted abilities, including perfect attacks, defenses, etc. Is your argument really "he can't copy them because he just can't?"


But I must say, your idea of power as measured so linearly, it's quite quaint.

Actually, wizard power goes up exponentially or from "high" to "as high as possible" instantly.


Why must power only be measured on pure destruction when I can simply cut the individual out of existence?

Because wizard's can do the same thing. If your argument is "Exalts are stronger" then prove they can.


The Exalted don't need to destroy a universe, but they can conceivable can based on high level essence and high level craft making mad science! based doomsday devices.

Conceivably /=/ can.

[Poison_Fish]

He can gain any ability, ever. That includes Exalted abilities, including perfect attacks, defenses, etc. Is your argument really "he can't copy them because he just can't?"

No, it's truthfully based on an Exalt going "no u" and punching Pun Pun in the face. Also, Pun Pun can gain any ability ever (in D&D). When abilities have dependencies on "You must have this" and he can't become a solar exalt without having a shard, where the law of the everything says you can't have more, it doesn't work. It's an issue of perfects coming into play again.


Actually, wizard power goes up exponentially or from "high" to "as high as possible" instantly.

Possible is not perfect. Your still thinking in a linear scale, which is your weakness.


Because wizard's can do the same thing. If your argument is "Exalts are stronger" then prove they can.

Wizards can't do the same thing because they don't have perfects. You've never proved a perfect. Exalts are stronger because they have infinite in their description. It comes down to immovable object to unstoppable force, but I haven't seen either pop up from your defense(Approaching infinite is not perfect, do I really need to repeat this more?). Exalts start with those.


Conceivably /=/ can.

Again, why bother? I don't need to blow up the universe to solve my problems.

[Milskidasith]

No, it's truthfully based on an Exalt going "no u" and punching Pun Pun in the face. Also, Pun Pun can gain any ability ever (in D&D). When abilities have dependencies on "You must have this" and he can't become a solar exalt without having a shard, where the law of the everything says you can't have more, it doesn't work.

Pun Pun can copy any ability, including those with other dependencies. If your argument is "he can't copy abilities because they aren't D&D abilities" then it's an "incompatible systems" problem, not a win. If it's just because there is some requirement he needs to get Exalted abilities, he can get the requirement easily enough.

[Fan]

epic ward of "No U." Reflects a attack that beats the casters AC infinitely at the person who intiated the attack.

Spellcraft DC is irrelavent.

[GoC]

You guys don't know what infinity is. That's all I need to say. Infinity is not a real number, your claiming your reaching infinity by use of real numbers. That is not infinity. Please take some more math before you start trying to throw that around.
Tell me this wasn't addressed to me.:smallsigh:
Lord of Procrastination's infinite damage combo works by share pain.
Basically there are four people each of which will take half of any damage dealt to any of the others. Hit them with 10 damage and they'll all take an infinite amount.

[Poison_Fish]

Tell me this wasn't addressed to me.:smallsigh:
Lord of Procrastination's infinite damage combo works by share pain.
Basically there are four people each of which will take half of any damage dealt to any of the others. Hit them with 10 damage and they'll all take an infinite amount.

I see real numbers there, that isn't infinity. That is just a lot of dice being rolled to approach infinity.


epic ward of "No U." Reflects a attack that beats the casters AC infinitely at the person who intiated the attack.

Spellcraft DC is irrelavent.

Epic ward is not a "No U", it reflects a number approaching infinity back at you. An attack that is perfect says "No U" stronger for it is infinite.


Pun Pun can copy any ability, including those with other dependencies. If your argument is "he can't copy abilities because they aren't D&D abilities" then it's an "incompatible systems" problem, not a win. If it's just because there is some requirement he needs to get Exalted abilities, he can get the requirement easily enough.

With more polymorph abuse? I punch his copying out of him. Perfectly.

I'm going to keep with this "infinity > then approaching" infinity argument because it's frankly all I need. Making really big numbers isn't infinity, and that's all your doing.

[Milskidasith]

I see real numbers there, that isn't infinity. That is just a lot of dice being rolled by approaching infinity.

It's an infinite amount of damage. It is composed of real numbers, yes, but an infinite number of ones is still an infinite number.


Epic ward is not a "No U", it reflects a number approaching infinity back at you. An attack that is perfect says "No U" stronger for it is infinite.


With more polymorph abuse? I punch his copying out of him. Perfectly.

It's not using Polymorph, and unless you can beat the Near-Perfect (Perfect with Infinite CL through Epic Heighten + Sanctum Spell) that is Mind Blank, there is no way to know he's copying you.

[GoC]

I see real numbers there, that isn't infinity. That is just a lot of dice being rolled to approach infinity.
Infinite is the thing (X) such that for any real number (N): N<X.* This is the case with the result of the infinite damage loop.

* You'll note that this also matches the definition of Perfect.

[WalkingTarget]

It's an infinite amount of damage. It is composed of real numbers, yes, but an infinite number of ones is still an infinite number.

This is a limit, the damage rolled in a loop can approach infinity, but in a real sense has to stop somewhere. You may roll your die as many times as you like but in order to reach infinity, you never stop rolling that die. If this is a to-hit roll (for example) and the defender has an infinite (perfect) defense score:

Attacker: does that hit?
Defender: no.
Attacker: ok, so I roll again and add, does that hit?
Defender: no.
.
.
.
A: I roll again and add, does that hit?
D: no.

It doesn't matter how many times you add a number to that roll, it never hits infinity, this dialog continues forever. The attack score can get arbitrarily high, but in order for the action to end it can't be infinite.

[Cubey]

Walking Target explained it in layman terms. I'll try in a different way.

Let's imagine a sequence of numbers. The first is number is 1, and every number equals to the one previous to it, plus one. So it goes 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.
Does any of these numbers equal to infinity? No! You cannot reach infinity by counting finite numbers. Not only that, but the sum of all numbers in the sequence will not equal infinity as well. The best you can hope for is nearing infinity, which is as close to infinity as possible without being infinity itself, but it is not infinity.

[Fan]

I see real numbers there, that isn't infinity. That is just a lot of dice being rolled to approach infinity.



Epic ward is not a "No U", it reflects a number approaching infinity back at you. An attack that is perfect says "No U" stronger for it is infinite.



With more polymorph abuse? I punch his copying out of him. Perfectly.

I'm going to keep with this "infinity > then approaching" infinity argument because it's frankly all I need. Making really big numbers isn't infinity, and that's all your doing.

This Epic ward explictly has Infinite in it, not approaching Infinite, not Arbitrarily High, INFINITE.

[GoC]

This Epic ward explictly has Infinite in it, not approaching Infinite, not Arbitrarily High, INFINITE.

Umm...
Does you epic ward satisfy the condition laid down in my last post?
Wall of Force has infinite damage resistance but an epic ward...:smallconfused:

[Poison_Fish]

It's an infinite amount of damage. It is composed of real numbers, yes, but an infinite number of ones is still an infinite number.


No, it's not an infinite number. It's creating a formula that has limitless potential. It is not the concept of infinity, which, while holding properties of a real number, is not a real number. It is an absolute end. You don't start at infinity, therefore you aren't. The problem is your still using dice and real numbers to get to a potential big number. The perfect of exalted just IS infinite. It is not potential, it is always better then potential.



It's not using Polymorph, and unless you can beat the Near-Perfect (Perfect with Infinite CL through Epic Heighten + Sanctum Spell) that is Mind Blank, there is no way to know he's copying you.

Perfect stealth makes you undetectable by any means. There is no way he can find them. Perfect integrity makes them immune to being affected by any mind based spells. There are many other things to just simply detect someone observing you that aren't based on measuring success, you just know.


Infinite is the thing (X) such that for any real number (N): N<X.* This is the case with the result of the infinite damage loop.

* You'll note that this also matches the definition of Perfect.

Perhaps I've been going about this wrong since your clearly not understanding. So let me redefine an Exalted Perfect. If accepting that your N to reach "infinite" DC or damage, is actually "infinite". Then an Exalted Perfect is always "Aleph one". This is the same as how it works in Exalted, as no matter how many "successes" you get with your die rolls(even an infinite amount of successes), a perfect is always greater, and no dice roll is involved. It is always larger then the limit of an infinite sum of natural numbers.

Edit: Well, I was slowpoke.jpg on other people answering this infinity thing here.

[WalkingTarget]

This Epic ward explictly has Infinite in it, not approaching Infinite, not Arbitrarily High, INFINITE.

Sorry, but D&D isn't really my game. Is this Epic Ward spell written up someplace? There isn't a spell by that name in the online SRD.

Edit - oh, I see, the seed stuff. Reading that now.

[Poison_Fish]

Sorry, but D&D isn't really my game. Is this Epic Ward spell written up someplace? There isn't a spell by that name in the online SRD.

This is the closest I can find here (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/seeds/ward.htm).

Which still leaves him wrong. No matter how you try to interpret that with bad english.

[GoC]

Perhaps I've been going about this wrong since your clearly not understanding. So let me redefine an Exalted Perfect. If accepting that your N to reach "infinite" DC or damage, is actually "infinite". Then an Exalted Perfect is always "Aleph one".
That's a nice statement. I bet £100 that it never appeared in any exhalted source books.


This is the same as how it works in Exalted, as no matter how many "successes" you get with your die rolls(even an infinite amount of successes), a perfect is always greater, and no dice roll is involved. It is always larger then the limit of an infinite sum of natural numbers.
Does it say that "no matter how many successes you get a perfect is always better"? Because if so I'd like to point out that it means:
"For any n in the natural numbers rolling that many successes is less than a perfect."
Which just means it's equivalent to the infinity I posted above. Also the standard comparison operators ("<" and ">") do not apply in the infinite "numbers". It's necessary to use alternate definitions such as 1 to 1 mappings (cardinals) or whether one contains the other (ordinals).

[WalkingTarget]

Does it say that "no matter how many successes you get a perfect is always better"? Because if so I'd like to point out that it means:
"For any n in the natural numbers rolling that many successes is less than a perfect."

A perfect defense in Exalted means that the defender needs to roll no dice. He simply defends.

There are attack charms that might say, for example, that they cannot be parried. The Heavenly Guardian Defense charm allows you to parry the attack anyway, without rolling.

[hamishspence]

ah- so does that mean that in Exalted, there is an Immovable Object, but therefore- no Irresistable Force?

That's certainly one way of getting around the paradox.

[WalkingTarget]

ah- so does that mean that in Exalted, there is an Immovable Object, but therefore- no Irresistable Force?

That's certainly one way of getting around the paradox.

It actually explicitly says that when an Irresistable Force meets and Immovable Object that the defense wins (using those terms). I don't know the system well enough (and especially the 2nd edition) to know if there are attack charms that require no roll at all (I know that there are ones that disallow a particular type of defense, either dodge or parry, but I don't know if there are ones that disallow both at once; a perfect defense is usable even if it's the type that's disallowed by the attack).

[hamishspence]

that would make it an "almost Irresistable Force" :smallwink:

[GoC]

A perfect defense in Exalted means that the defender needs to roll no dice. He simply defends.

There are attack charms that might say, for example, that they cannot be parried. The Heavenly Guardian Defense charm allows you to parry the attack anyway, without rolling.
So... contradictory universes again? This seems remarkbly common...

[hamishspence]

For the two to meet, one or both ends up needing to concede something-

a "neutral universe" so to speak, in between the two, where if the power approximates something in the other universe, it gains the appropriate benefits.

So if there is a Tippy equivalent of Perfect defence, it can parry the Perfect Attack of the other side.

Or vice versa- if there is a weapon close enough to the D&D equivalent, it can be treated as it, for rules purposes.

[Poison_Fish]

It actually explicitly says that when an Irresistable Force meets and Immovable Object that the defense wins (using those terms). I don't know the system well enough (and especially the 2nd edition) to know if there are attack charms that require no roll at all (I know that there are ones that disallow a particular type of defense, either dodge or parry, but I don't know if there are ones that disallow both at once; a perfect defense is usable even if it's the type that's disallowed by the attack).

There are attack charms that are perfect. However, tie goes to the defender in all cases. I believe 2E also introduces a concept of zeal that goes beyond perfects in their first age stuff, but I've been sticking to the system I know, which is 1E.

You know, this "contradictory systems" stuff seems like a huge cop out every time I see it. As if it's some sort of maneuver to save nerd face and honor when you can't RAW yourself out of an issue. Perhaps that's just how I'm interpreting it though.

[Milskidasith]

You know, this "contradictory systems" stuff seems like a huge cop out every time I see it. As if it's some sort of maneuver to save nerd face and honor when you can't RAW yourself out of an issue. Perhaps that's just how I'm interpreting it though.

It's mostly just that, quite frankly, they ARE incompatible. It's like comparing, say, Final Fantasy VI with Chrono Trigger, and using the damage numbers they get as proof that FF VI is stronger (Whether or not FF VI is stronger is an entirely different matter for an entirely new topic).

In the D&D universe, an Epic Wizard is literally invincible; no method of attack can possibly hit him, and with arbitrarily high CL on everything, he can't be dispelled, and even if you could, he has an arbitrarily high number of wards protecting him from every possible spell in existence. In Exalted, somebody using the Heavenly Guardian Defense is totally invincible.

How do you figure out which of the totally invincible forces is more invincible? By Tippy rules, I could create a spell that says "This spell cannot be blocked by the Heavenly Guardian Defense" and since specific trumps general, it can go through. By Exalted rules, defense always wins, and since Heavenly Guardian Defense is perfect, it wins. Incompatible.

By Tippy rules, they could create epic wards against all possible perfect attacks from Exalted, and they're suddenly stopped. By Exalted rules... well, they'd still be stopped, I think, except it's not really a true "perfect" defense so they wouldn't? I'm not really sure if there are any situations like that in Exalted. Either way, it's incompatible.

[Poison_Fish]

It's mostly just that, quite frankly, they ARE incompatible. It's like comparing, say, Final Fantasy VI with Chrono Trigger, and using the damage numbers they get as proof that FF VI is stronger (Whether or not FF VI is stronger is an entirely different matter for an entirely new topic).

In the D&D universe, an Epic Wizard is literally invincible; no method of attack can possibly hit him, and with arbitrarily high CL on everything, he can't be dispelled, and even if you could, he has an arbitrarily high number of wards protecting him from every possible spell in existence. In Exalted, somebody using the Heavenly Guardian Defense is totally invincible.

How do you figure out which of the totally invincible forces is more invincible? By Tippy rules, I could create a spell that says "This spell cannot be blocked by the Heavenly Guardian Defense" and since specific trumps general, it can go through. By Exalted rules, defense always wins, and since Heavenly Guardian Defense is perfect, it wins. Incompatible.

By Tippy rules, they could create epic wards against all possible perfect attacks from Exalted, and they're suddenly stopped. By Exalted rules... well, they'd still be stopped, I think, except it's not really a true "perfect" defense so they wouldn't? I'm not really sure if there are any situations like that in Exalted. Either way, it's incompatible.

At this point, why even have a vs. thread in the first place? Other then humor or some sort of... Ram head smashing contest. It's very easy to always make the claim that it's incompatible. We got into this issue 2-3 years ago back in the days of excessive vs. threads like 40K vs. every thing, or the mix mash of exalted, 40k, D&D abuse, the culture, and a few other things. There are situations in Exalted that have "near perfects" or "perfects if it is a normal attack not modified by essence".

The basis that I was arguing, however, was that I've yet to see anything close to a similar concept of perfect in an Exalted sense. Any "perfect" so far has been only in a numerical sense, like I have an "impossibly high spellcraft skill".

So, what I really should ask you is, show me something that is a perfect defense that can't get dispelled(not, you have a high difficulty, I mean literally not dispelled), that has no exceptions, and doesn't have things that can take it out. Your Epic Ward Seed certainly doesn't have it.

[Milskidasith]

You're making exactly the point I was talking about. Exalted has perfects. D&D doesn't. But Exalted doesn't have specific trumps general. In D&D terms, a perfect attack would be "this attack automatically hits and does X damage (or just kills)." However, an Epic Ward, despite being dispellable, could very well say "This ward protects against Perfect Attack X" and Perfect Attack X would be stopped.

[Deadmeat.GW]

Actually I think you find that in Exalted there are specific trumps too but not when you come down to Perfect Defenses...

[The_JJ]

Hey guess what?

This thread has nothing to do with Exalted!

So now that we seem to have reached an equilibrim wherein Exalted and DnD have rulesets ('Perfect' defense vs. Epic Ward of specificity) that don't compute.

Can we leave it at that, or start a new bleeding thread?

So... does anyone here have an objection to the 'Culture seduces Tippy Wizards FTW' argument?

[Omegonthesane]

So... does anyone here have an objection to the 'Culture seduces Tippy Wizards FTW' argument?

Yes, it sidesteps the whole awesomesauce fight. :smalltongue:
On a more serious note, I'm not entirely convinced it counts as a win. What it amounts to is convincing the Tippyverse that they benefit from stopping the war immediately... which amounts to the above sentence without the tongue smiley. However, pheremones and looking sexy and acting sexy are not [Mind-Affecting] effects or anything else that magic, even epic magic, can block. The only problem is getting them in.
The baseline assumption is that the Tippyverse is not united - the venerable grey elf wizard-lords or whatever it was scheme and plot against eachother, and fear eachother more than any other thing. One of them could easily defect, and then the others could see the benefits of doing so.

How prepared are we assuming the world to be? The Tippyverse could have only just begun, with 1st level Good* clerics making Create Water traps to make sure everyone has clean water and 1st level Wizards making Prestidigitation traps to make the flavouring industry obsolete.

* I personally would revoke a Tippy cleric's Good alignment for refusing to supply every village he comes across with at least infinite water, even if we're only at 1st level.

Spoilered for irrelevance.
Concerning Tippyverse VS Exalted: Hiding somewhere in the depths of Tippyverse space is Almighty Pun-Pun, who grants all Tippy clerics their spells, grants all domains, has every favoured weapon, and counts as all other gods for the purpose of his worshippers getting PrCs. He grants himself all the abilities in every Exalted book ever, and the supernatural ability to grant himself infinite Essence. And smites anyone else who tries to become Pun-Pun. We need a RAW explanation for why Pun-Pun traditionally doesn't feature in Tippyverse.

Or even better, he uses his Hand of Death salient ability to exterminate all Exalted. Only a higher-rank deity can undo Hand of Death, and no other deity's divine rank can even compare to Pun-Pun's divine rank.

[GoC]

For the two to meet, one or both ends up needing to concede something-

a "neutral universe" so to speak, in between the two, where if the power approximates something in the other universe, it gains the appropriate benefits.

So if there is a Tippy equivalent of Perfect defence, it can parry the Perfect Attack of the other side.

Or vice versa- if there is a weapon close enough to the D&D equivalent, it can be treated as it, for rules purposes.
Works in almost all cases. Doesn't work in a vs thread where a side is based on RAW.


You know, this "contradictory systems" stuff seems like a huge cop out every time I see it. As if it's some sort of maneuver to save nerd face and honor when you can't RAW yourself out of an issue. Perhaps that's just how I'm interpreting it though.
Yep. Thing is, the OP is supposed to say what happens when contradictions appear. Normally we can go on the kind of heuristic hamishpence mentioned but we can't do that here.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: This thread is locked for review. In the future, please refrain from making versus threads that are either meta in nature or supply two unlimited power adversaries. (Expect this to be added to the versus sticky.)