Defeating Pun-Pun?

[JackRackham]

Is there a way to defeat Pun-Pun once he has accomplished his schtick? Unless I misunderstand, I believe the omniscieficier (or w/e the spelling is) can prevent a Pun-Pun. What beats it, though?

[Piggy Knowles]

The problem with defeating Pun-Pun post-ascension is that Pun-Pun effectively has every ability in the game. Therefore, anything you can do, he can do better.

Anyhow, it's silly... Pun-Pun's not one statted out creature with a list of abilities, it is a low level build that can obtain every ability, divine rank, NI scores, etc.

[Dusk Eclipse]

A faster Kobold/thread.

More seriously Pun-pun has all the power he needs or want, so once he has ascended it is unstoppable.

[Mystify]

My friend told me how to defeat pun-pun once. Let me see if I remember how it went.

There is a spell that gives you knowledge, but you take damage from using it based on how much knowledge you get, or the rarity of that knowlege.
You jump off a cliff over the ocean. Cast the spell. Hit the water, and drown. Then get revived. The drowning somehow negates the damage dealt to you, so you get infinite knowledge.

Among that knowledge is how to defeat pun pun.

[Radar]

I remember reading a discussion about this subject. IIRC the conclusion was, that it might be possible to destroy Pun-Pun by excessive use of Time Regression (or Forced Dream - I'm not quite sure). Just go back in time kill him before ascension. The chances are more then just slim, but there was no other way.
The whole discussion was quite complicated (there were Monte Carlo method attacks on the timeline launched from the Far Realms in use among other things).
At any rate, it's beyond D&D as a rule set.

@Mystify
It's the other way around: you use a spell that buffs your stats proportionally to the damage you take (Favor of the Martyr) along with Delay Death. Then you use any source of infinite damage on yourself. The drowning part is to set your HP back to 0. With infinite Int comes infinite knowledge (which should also contain a method of stoping drowning - even if it is not covered in the rules).

[JackRackham]

My friend told me how to defeat pun-pun once. Let me see if I remember how it went.

There is a spell that gives you knowledge, but you take damage from using it based on how much knowledge you get, or the rarity of that knowlege.
You jump off a cliff over the ocean. Cast the spell. Hit the water, and drown. Then get revived. The drowning somehow negates the damage dealt to you, so you get infinite knowledge.

Among that knowledge is how to defeat pun pun.

Yes, this is the omniscificer I referred to in the OP. hmmm

[Hiro Protagonest]

My friend told me how to defeat pun-pun once. Let me see if I remember how it went.

There is a spell that gives you knowledge, but you take damage from using it based on how much knowledge you get, or the rarity of that knowlege.
You jump off a cliff over the ocean. Cast the spell. Hit the water, and drown. Then get revived. The drowning somehow negates the damage dealt to you, so you get infinite knowledge.

Among that knowledge is how to defeat pun pun.

That's the Omniscifier. It can't actually defeat Pun-Pun (because Pun-Pun has an ability called "No Weakness or Weaknesses"), it was just made to prevent it. When Pun-Pun became available at level 1, that stopped.

Also, the drowning thing to bring you to 0 HP doesn't work, because, by RAW, there's no way to stop drowning once you start. So you'd be in a permanent state of limbo until someone takes pity and kills you.

[Coidzor]

Hmm... Sadly, I think that campaign dissolved. Was a fairly promising group that had set out to explore that very premise though. Wish I could give you the link though. :smallfrown:

Really though, he has to actively be holding back, or you need to do some kind of hail mary play like stealing the copies of the Pact Primeval and re-writing reality before he thinks to do it himself.

Otherwise the Omniscifier is the best bet for pre-ascension.

[Hirax]

OOC we all know how to defeat pun-pun pre-ascension without the Omniscifier trick: destroy all sarrukhs, all knowledge of sarrukhs, and anything that could cause knowledge of sarrukhs.

[Telonius]

The proper way to defeat Pun-Pun is to allow him to ascend. When he gets an arbitrarily high Wisdom, he realizes that he's actually a theoretical exercise and not intended for gameplay. He redirects all calls to Pazuzu to himself, and laughs himself silly if somebody ever tries it again.

[tyckspoon]

I remember reading a discussion about this subject. IIRC the conclusion was, that it might be possible to destroy Pun-Pun by excessive use of Time Regression (or Forced Dream - I'm not quite sure). Just go back in time kill him before ascension. The chances are more then just slim, but there was no other way.
The whole discussion was quite complicated (there were Monte Carlo method attacks on the timeline launched from the Far Realms in use among other things).
At any rate, it's beyond D&D as a rule set.


I don't know if they're properly archived anywhere these days since the WotC forums went through their various transformations and crashes, but if you want to try the builds were filed under 'Terminator' and 'Neo Terminator'. The Neo Terminator probably ranks as the second-most powerful build after Pun-Pun himself, because in order to even begin to be a threat to an ascended Pun-Pun they had to come up with a character that can undetectably enter the timeline at an arbitrary point and destroy any given target whenever they're most vulnerable.

[Mystify]

Ah, thanks for unraveling that for me. I always wondered what the precise details if it were, I heard about the omniscifier roughly a year before I started playing.

[Fable Wright]

I don't know if they're properly archived anywhere these days since the WotC forums went through their various transformations and crashes, but if you want to try the builds were filed under 'Terminator' and 'Neo Terminator'. The Neo Terminator probably ranks as the second-most powerful build after Pun-Pun himself, because in order to even begin to be a threat to an ascended Pun-Pun they had to come up with a character that can undetectably enter the timeline at an arbitrary point and destroy any given target whenever they're most vulnerable.

It was kinda difficult to find, but here is the terminator (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19861610/TGs_Pun-Pun_Challenger:_34;The_Terminator34;_(Finalized)?p g=1).

[sonofzeal]

OOC we all know how to defeat pun-pun pre-ascension without the Omniscifier trick: destroy all sarrukhs, all knowledge of sarrukhs, and anything that could cause knowledge of sarrukhs.
Harder than it sounds. "Anything that could cause knowledge of sarrukhs" is not something that can be accomplished through brute force.

Thankfully, there's an elegant solution - force all Sarrukhs to take the Vecna-Blooded template, then kill them. Still prohibitively difficult as Sarrukhs are just a little bit powerful, but at least with Vecna-Blooded you stand a chance of being able to erase the knowledge itself.

[GoatBoy]

As soon as you start giving serious thought to the mechanics and/or subtleties of Pun-pun, he's already beaten you.

[Dragonsoul]

Harder than it sounds. "Anything that could cause knowledge of sarrukhs" is not something that can be accomplished through brute force.

Thankfully, there's an elegant solution - force all Sarrukhs to take the Vecna-Blooded template, then kill them. Still prohibitively difficult as Sarrukhs are just a little bit powerful, but at least with Vecna-Blooded you stand a chance of being able to erase the knowledge itself.

Kill all sarrukhs bar one-making it a unique creature and therefore an invalid choice for polymorph.

[Randomguy]

Step 1: Go back to the beginnings of time, when creation was young and new.
Step 2: Kill every single Sarrukh and the deity that created them. Then have all the remaining gods and elder evils sign a pack to never create it or anything with it's abilities ever. (They'd do it, if only to prevent anything from rising up and killing all of them).
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.

Ultimately, I think it is possible to kill punpun by beating him in initiative. The thing is, it's possible to get infinite resources using other methods. (Thought bottle abuse+True Creation via Arcane Disciple). Assume a heavily optimized high level wizard (Or wizard 10 incantatrix 10). Both sides have lightning strike (the ability dire tortoises get), so that kind of cancels itself out. Both sides could have every possible initiative booster there is. Both sides have celerity and time stop. PunPun has higher dexterity (since the wizard has to shapechange into a dire tortoise while punpun has the ability on it's own.

So: PunPun wins initiative, due to higher dex. Wizard casts celerity to interrupt punpuns action. Punpun casts celerity to interrupt wizard's action.

The thing is, an intelligent magic item could cast time stop and kill punpun. So whichever side has more of those items wins. But both sides can have an infinite amount of those items. So whoever spends more time crafting those items first wins. But both sides have a possible infinite time, thanks to being ageless on the astral plane. So whoever Ascends first wins.

Therefore it's only possible to beat a post-ascension pun pun by wiping him off the face of the earth the very second he ascends.

[gkathellar]

My friend told me how to defeat pun-pun once. Let me see if I remember how it went.

There is a spell that gives you knowledge, but you take damage from using it based on how much knowledge you get, or the rarity of that knowlege.
You jump off a cliff over the ocean. Cast the spell. Hit the water, and drown. Then get revived. The drowning somehow negates the damage dealt to you, so you get infinite knowledge.

Among that knowledge is how to defeat pun pun.

The omniscifer. It beats the classic level 5 pun-pun by getting its schtick at level 4.

[Zeful]

Be a god of rank 16+ with the one of the following in your portfolio: Kobolds, Transformation, Snakes. Be aware of any particular Kobold attempting to become Pun-pun. The ascension is a transformation involving snakes and kobolds, any greater dieity with any of those portfolios knows its going to happen. With the way the Portfolio sense ability is worded (Greater deities automatically sense any event that involves their portfolios, regardless of the number of people involved. In addition, their senses extend one week into the past and one week into the future for every divine rank they have.... Once a deity notices an event, it can use its remote sensing power to perceive the event.) he will be able to watch the event the moment he senses the event, a minimum of 16 weeks before it occurs. Locate the kobold, smite the Kobold with your godly powers/class abilities.

There Pun-Pun is defeated.

[Gotterdammerung]

Is there a way to defeat Pun-Pun once he has accomplished his schtick? Unless I misunderstand, I believe the omniscieficier (or w/e the spelling is) can prevent a Pun-Pun. What beats it, though?

If he is allowed to do his schtick there literally is no way to beat him.

The best way to beat him is with a GM who says, "That's the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If Manipulate Form worked that way the Sarruhk's would of all been Pun-puns instead of wasting away into extinction hiding in the corners of the universe. And besides, I am going to ad-hoc your knowledge check because the Sarruhk are pretty hermit like and rare. Also, I consider a Sarrukh to be a unique being, and therefore it is not compelled to come through any gates or to give you it's ability. And no you can't wish for Manipulate Form, stop being dumb and build a real character."

Ah the mighty DM, enemy of TO everywhere.

[Battleship789]

Step 1: Go back to the beginnings of time, when creation was young and new.
Step 2: Kill every single Sarrukh and the deity that created them. Then have all the remaining gods and elder evils sign a pack to never create it or anything with it's abilities ever. (They'd do it, if only to prevent anything from rising up and killing all of them).
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Profit.

Ultimately, I think it is possible to kill punpun by beating him in initiative. The thing is, it's possible to get infinite resources using other methods. (Thought bottle abuse+True Creation via Arcane Disciple). Assume a heavily optimized high level wizard (Or wizard 10 incantatrix 10). Both sides have lightning strike (the ability dire tortoises get), so that kind of cancels itself out. Both sides could have every possible initiative booster there is. Both sides have celerity and time stop. PunPun has higher dexterity (since the wizard has to shapechange into a dire tortoise while punpun has the ability on it's own.

So: PunPun wins initiative, due to higher dex. Wizard casts celerity to interrupt punpuns action. Punpun casts celerity to interrupt wizard's action.

The thing is, an intelligent magic item could cast time stop and kill punpun. So whichever side has more of those items wins. But both sides can have an infinite amount of those items. So whoever spends more time crafting those items first wins. But both sides have a possible infinite time, thanks to being ageless on the astral plane. So whoever Ascends first wins.

Therefore it's only possible to beat a post-ascension pun pun by wiping him off the face of the earth the very second he ascends.

After Pun-Pun ascends there is literally nothing that can be done. Pun-Pun can give himself the Ex ability: I Win, which allows him to do/have ANYTHING.(Pun-Pun has access to every ability ever printed and any that can be thought of...) Also, Pun-Pun has NI divine ranks and therefore all Salient Divine abilities, of which there exists one called Supreme Initiative where you always go before anyone with a lower divine rank.

[motoko's ghost]

Invoke rule zero...rule zero to the face.


you never said this was for PCs only:smalltongue:

[tyckspoon]

After Pun-Pun ascends there is literally nothing that can be done. Pun-Pun can give himself the Ex ability: I Win, which allows him to do/have ANYTHING.(Pun-Pun has access to every ability ever printed and any that can be thought of...)

This is why one of the stipulations of the 'Can you beat Pun-Pun?' contests was always that Create Form can not be used to create abilities out of whole cloth. If you don't have that judgement, fighting Pun-Pun is an exercise in complete futility. With it, it's merely implausibly difficult.. Pun-Pun still can do everything ever printed, but "How do I become immune to absolutely everything?" and "how do I kill the unkillable?" are known optimization challenges, so if you're given enough resources you can actually protect yourself from him and maybe even discover a way to threaten him.

[Gotterdammerung]

This is why one of the stipulations of the 'Can you beat Pun-Pun?' contests was always that Create Form can not be used to create abilities out of whole cloth. If you don't have that judgement, fighting Pun-Pun is an exercise in complete futility. With it, it's merely implausibly difficult.. Pun-Pun still can do everything ever printed, but "How do I become immune to absolutely everything?" and "how do I kill the unkillable?" are known optimization challenges, so if you're given enough resources you can actually protect yourself from him and maybe even discover a way to threaten him.

Question
How do I become immune to absolutely everything?

Answer
By having everything ever printed.

Question
How do I kill the unkillable?

Answer
You don't. That is what unkillable means.

[tyckspoon]

Question
How do I become immune to absolutely everything?

Answer
By having everything ever printed.

Question
How do I kill the unkillable?

Answer
You don't. That is what unkillable means.

Actually, the attempts recognized as coming closest settled on "go back in time until he's not immune to everything and attack him then" because, to the best of my knowledge, nothing in D&D is created unattackable. It's something of a testament to the silliness of high-power D&D and the resourcefulness of its optimizers that this is actually a viable line of attack.

[Templarkommando]

This is going to have more to do with plot devices than it has to do with actual game mechanics.

1. Deus ex Machina - There is some artifact that - through liberal and blatant use of Bellisario's Maxim - is able to finally eliminate Pun-pun permanently.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BellisariosMaxim?from=Main.ptitleuvmtqrxe

2. Gimmick - In Batman, and similar works, the protagonist is able to defeat the antagonist through some gimmick. Usually this takes the form of a certain skill or outwitting the opponent. So - once again applying a liberal layer of Bellisario's Maxim - our heroes are able to think one step ahead of Pun-pun which helps them develop a plan that ruins Pun-Pun once and for all.

3. Illogical reasoning - The party digs a plot-hole which Pun-pun subsequently irretrievably falls into.

4. Cartoon Physics - The party uses the roadrunner variation of tactic #3. Running off a cliff they escape safely to the other side. Pun-pun however realizes that he is running on thin air and promptly falls to the bottom of the ravine.

5. Changing the subject - The party is able to kill Pun-pun through means of a cleverly executed.... ARE THOSE DOUGHNUTS?

6. Non-sequitur - The party successfully defeats Pun-pun by jaywalking.

7. Ad Hominem - The party is able to defeat Pun-pun because the DM is a doody head.

8. The Overly Elaborate Plan - The party cuts to commercial while whispering amongst themselves. When we return they spring their unexplained and over elaborate trap which successfully snares Pun-Pun.

9. Misuse of commas - "I want to eat Pun-Pun" as opposed to "I want to eat, Pun-Pun."

10. The Trojan Rabbit Gambit/Monty Python Reference - "Then, Lancelot, Galahad and I leap out of the rabbit!"

Well, I'm out of ideas.

[gkathellar]

11. Hit anyone who brings up Pun-pun in an actual game. Hit them in the face, with some heavy, and then hit them a couple more times in various other places.

[Templarkommando]

11. Hit anyone who brings up Pun-pun in an actual game. Hit them in the face, with some heavy, and then hit them a couple more times in various other places.

We'll call that one an ad baculum.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_baculum

[Gotterdammerung]

Actually, the attempts recognized as coming closest settled on "go back in time until he's not immune to everything and attack him then" because, to the best of my knowledge, nothing in D&D is created unattackable. It's something of a testament to the silliness of high-power D&D and the resourcefulness of its optimizers that this is actually a viable line of attack.

Except time travel is not a viable form of attack against a deity, especially one with an infinite divine rank and every printed boon in the game.

If you can't beat Zeus with time travel (which you can't), then you certainly can't beat pun pun.

Here is a Salient Divine ability for ya,

Divine Recall

Benefit: The deity remembers every event of a certain type that has ever occurred. The type of event is specified in the deity description.

Notes: A deity can have this ability multiple times, choosing a different type of event each time.

So, Pun Pun remembers every single time that anything threatened his life, ever, anywhere, anytime, always.

If you can travel through time... so can Pun Pun. How much you want to bet he gets there first?


Bottom line, once he is created Pun Pun can not be beaten.

But since he was created in a Theoretical Optimization Labratory with no GM in sight, he doesn't matter and won't ever exist in a real game.

[tyckspoon]

*shrug* Believe what you want. But this is D&D, and there *are* ways around pretty much everything. If you can find it, the Neo-Terminator build was designed to try and answer that sort of objection. How it actually works is Deep Magic that I won't even try to describe from memory because I'll horribly mangle it, but the upshot of it was the ability to launch attacks at any point in the timeline such that none of the attacks ever actually *happened* (thus escaping predictive powers) until one of them succeeds.

(Also you certainly can beat Zeus with time travel, although if you have the power to play with time sufficiently to do so you probably can just walk up to him and punt him off his heavenly throne too. D&Ds gods will fold in front of sufficient applied force just like anything else.)

[Acanous]

Technically speaking, a Vecna-Blooded Dread Witch could defeat him as printed. All it needs to do is hit him with three Fear spells. This can be accomplished by Contingeancy and Quicken Spell.

Being Vecna-blooded, Punpun starts unaware of you. If Punpun is also Vecna-blooded, it erases his history, but he's still throwing around more weight than anything ever printed. Finding out about him would be a matter of time.

So, given this;

Ultimately, I think it is possible to kill punpun by beating him in initiative. The thing is, it's possible to get infinite resources using other methods. (Thought bottle abuse+True Creation via Arcane Disciple). Assume a heavily optimized high level wizard (Or wizard 10 incantatrix 10). Both sides have lightning strike (the ability dire tortoises get), so that kind of cancels itself out. Both sides could have every possible initiative booster there is. Both sides have celerity and time stop. PunPun has higher dexterity (since the wizard has to shapechange into a dire tortoise while punpun has the ability on it's own.


but throw "Contingeancy: If someone other than me casts Celerity, target them with Fear"
even though he goes first, he can only take actions that move him away from you. Unless Punpun is going around exterminating everyone, you get the surprise action as you decide when this combat begins by taking a hostile action directed at Punpun (By RAW)

Forcing an opponent to flee is considered a victory, thus he is defeated- even if he's immune to Fear. Given that this is non-lethal, and that he's already immune to fear, it's extremely unlikely he'd spend his Contingeancy countering it.

The downside being that he's still a level 1 Kobold, and you'll get 0 XP for it. Bragging rights, though.

[HunterOfJello]

Possible ways to beat Pun-Pun:

1. be Pun-Pun

2. become a second (Pun-Pun2) and be more crafty than the player who is playing the first Pun-Pun (Pun-Pun1)


Technically speaking, a Vecna-Blooded Dread Witch could defeat him as printed. All it needs to do is hit him with three Fear spells. This can be accomplished by Contingeancy and Quicken Spell.


You still have to deal with Immunity to Spells, Immunity to Mind-Effecting, Infinitely High Saves, Mettle, Infinitely High Touch AC, and other abilities.

How are you going to hit him with the spells?

[Gotterdammerung]

*shrug* Believe what you want. But this is D&D, and there *are* ways around pretty much everything. If you can find it, the Neo-Terminator build was designed to try and answer that sort of objection. How it actually works is Deep Magic that I won't even try to describe from memory because I'll horribly mangle it, but the upshot of it was the ability to launch attacks at any point in the timeline such that none of the attacks ever actually *happened* (thus escaping predictive powers) until one of them succeeds.

I know what game it is.
Do you have a link to this vague "Deep Magic" that auto wins with its vagueness?

Also, divine recall is not a predictive power. It is just simple memory. Pun Pun can take Divine Recall as many times as he wants, and each time pick specific new type of event that he wants to remember. "The birth of anyone who will one day threaten me." Ta-da, pun pun remembers your deep mage pop out his momma. Time travel and mud stomp a baby.





(Also you certainly can beat Zeus with time travel, although if you have the power to play with time sufficiently to do so you probably can just walk up to him and punt him off his heavenly throne too. D&Ds gods will fold in front of sufficient applied force just like anything else.)

Not if run properly.
Gods are the most soft played monster in this game.

[Gotterdammerung]

Technically speaking, a Vecna-Blooded Dread Witch could defeat him as printed. All it needs to do is hit him with three Fear spells. This can be accomplished by Contingeancy and Quicken Spell.

Being Vecna-blooded, Punpun starts unaware of you. If Punpun is also Vecna-blooded, it erases his history, but he's still throwing around more weight than anything ever printed. Finding out about him would be a matter of time.

So, given this;

but throw "Contingeancy: If someone other than me casts Celerity, target them with Fear"
even though he goes first, he can only take actions that move him away from you. Unless Punpun is going around exterminating everyone, you get the surprise action as you decide when this combat begins by taking a hostile action directed at Punpun (By RAW)

Forcing an opponent to flee is considered a victory, thus he is defeated- even if he's immune to Fear. Given that this is non-lethal, and that he's already immune to fear, it's extremely unlikely he'd spend his Contingeancy countering it.

The downside being that he's still a level 1 Kobold, and you'll get 0 XP for it. Bragging rights, though.

I am going from memory here, but does dread necromancer give you some way to ignore stupid high SR and spell immunity and spell turning on your fear spell? Or does it give you a way to stop him from autosaving with mettle and ignoring the spell?

[tyckspoon]

I know what game it is.
Do you have a link to this vague "Deep Magic" that auto wins with its vagueness?


Ah, pardon. "Deep Magic" is not a game term in any way, at least not that I was using it. And no, unfortunately, I don't know if an actual record of the techniques developed to refine the Terminator exists- most of it was carried out on the Wizards forums, which went through a period where they got crashed/rebuilt several times over. Anything from before or during that time, such as the attempts to develop a build capable of actually killing an ascended Pun-Pun, is at best difficult to retrieve. The best I've found is a comment in the Terminator thread that the creator of said build now considered it at best unlikely that he would find a way to beat Pun-Pun.

(Ironically, this is because one of the techniques developed in the bid to defeat Pun-Pun was a method to temporally clone yourself over the entire timeline, thus being able to monitor everything, intervene when necessary, and become functionally undestroyable without completely erasing the target from the very first moment of time. Since Pun-Pun can Do Everything, he can also employ this to protect his own existence in exactly the same way those seeking his defeat hoped to use it to end him.)

[JackRackham]

The more I'm reading all this, the more I'm convinced there's no RAW, mechanical way to defeat Pun-Pun post-ascension; some of you have said as much. In-game, however, I can see a number of ways it could happen, with the right cosmology and the right outlook on fate.

Specifically, is this a deterministic universe? Would a DM retcon things such that, as soon as one tried to kill Pun-Pun he would already have known, killed your character's mother and you'd never have existed? How would any of us handle this? Then, if the universe is not deterministic and one is not a threat to Pun-Pun until one decides to threaten him, what happens if Pun-Pun goes back in time to kill you trying to kill him before he's ascended, there would then be two Pun-Puns existing in the same place in the temporal dimension. This could be a problem. If it becomes a race back and forth and back again through time, depending on the nature of the temporal dimension in a cosmology, it might weaken time itself, even the universe. Who knows what happens then? Perhaps one could kill Pun-Pun at the cost of the universe?

Of course, all this (apart from being the nerdiest thing I've ever typed or thought) is fundamentally silly, because why on earth would a DM bring Pun-Pun into a game world to begin with?

[Piggy Knowles]

Again, the problem with any mechanical, in-game combination of abilities is that Pun-Pun has every ability ever printed, and therefore already has that combination of abilities.

There is a finite amount of printed material for D&D 3.5 available, and therefore there is a finite number of abilities available. Pun-Pun has all of them, including all of the deity portfolio senses, time regression/time hop shenanigans, etc. And with NI intelligence and wisdom, he's going to be better at using them than you are.

Unless you ascend first, of course. You want to beat him? That's the way to do it. But while that was a valid goal when the earliest Pun-Pun build was level 6, now that it can be pulled off at level 1, it gets a little silly.

[Mystify]

Again, the problem with any mechanical, in-game combination of abilities is that Pun-Pun has every ability ever printed, and therefore already has that combination of abilities.

There is a finite amount of printed material for D&D 3.5 available, and therefore there is a finite number of abilities available. Pun-Pun has all of them, including all of the deity portfolio senses, time regression/time hop shenanigans, etc. And with NI intelligence and wisdom, he's going to be better at using them than you are.

Unless you ascend first, of course. You want to beat him? That's the way to do it. But while that was a valid goal when the earliest Pun-Pun build was level 6, now that it can be pulled off at level 1, it gets a little silly.
Why is level important? Are you assuming they both start adventuring at the same time? What if you assume they are born at the same time, then the youngest starting adventurer age wins(and you can take a younger starting class 1st level to access a more powerful class on 2nd level to start early). Why would we even assume that much?

[Crasical]

Also, the drowning thing to bring you to 0 HP doesn't work, because, by RAW, there's no way to stop drowning once you start. So you'd be in a permanent state of limbo until someone takes pity and kills you.

You say this as if death was an insurmountable obstacle to a PC. You just need a cleric with a fishing net and a fistful of diamonds.

[Fable Wright]

You say this as if death was an insurmountable obstacle to a PC. You just need a cleric with a fishing net and a fistful of diamonds.

Because, by RAW, you don't stop drowning after you die.

D&D makes little sense sometimes.

Drowning is an insurmountable object to the PCs. Death is easy.

[Piggy Knowles]

Why is level important? Are you assuming they both start adventuring at the same time? What if you assume they are born at the same time, then the youngest starting adventurer age wins(and you can take a younger starting class 1st level to access a more powerful class on 2nd level to start early). Why would we even assume that much?

Because if you're using in-game time, then it becomes a game of "nuh-uh, my character wins because it was born three million years before yours ever started!" Maybe you don't find that silly, but I do.

To me, arguing that a build "defeats" another one based on what essentially comes down to story doesn't cut the mustard. If you want to argue that your build does something faster than mine, I expect your build to do it at a lower level, because otherwise I could just modify my backstory to say that I started a little earlier and bingo, problem solved.

[Chronos]

Ah, pardon. "Deep Magic" is not a game term in any way, at least not that I was using it. And no, unfortunately, I don't know if an actual record of the techniques developed to refine the Terminator exists- most of it was carried out on the Wizards forums, which went through a period where they got crashed/rebuilt several times over. Anything from before or during that time, such as the attempts to develop a build capable of actually killing an ascended Pun-Pun, is at best difficult to retrieve. The best I've found is a comment in the Terminator thread that the creator of said build now considered it at best unlikely that he would find a way to beat Pun-Pun.
So in other words, Pun-Pun used the Terminator build to go back in time and make it so that the build never actually existed. Clever, that. :smallcool:

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

Among that knowledge is how to defeat pun pun.Assuming THERE IS a way.
Even if I have infinite knowledge, I can't find the location of something that does not exist in the first place. And I can't figure out a way of doing something that can't be done in the first place.

[Fable Wright]

Assuming THERE IS a way.
Even if I have infinite knowledge, I can't find the location of something that does not exist in the first place. And I can't figure out a way of doing something that can't be done in the first place.

Even if there is not a way in this universe, there would probably be one in the Far Realms or some place, and knowledge of how to harness that knowledge. Or the knowledge of how to punch Pun-Pun from his location without Pun-Pun being aware of it, dealing actually infinite damage to him, and bypassing all of Pun-Pun's defenses, killing Pun-Pun. Sure the check to learn that would be in the upper trillions, but with an actually infinite bonus on the check, it would be easy to reach that.

[motoko's ghost]

Simple, break out the immortals handbook, eventually he'll collapse under the weight of all those zeroes.:smalltongue:

[Acanous]

Possible ways to beat Pun-Pun:

1. be Pun-Pun

2. become a second (Pun-Pun2) and be more crafty than the player who is playing the first Pun-Pun (Pun-Pun1)




You still have to deal with Immunity to Spells, Immunity to Mind-Effecting, Infinitely High Saves, Mettle, Infinitely High Touch AC, and other abilities.

How are you going to hit him with the spells?

Firstly, Fear is not flagged as Mind Effecting. It moves you down a category even if you save. It does not require a to-hit check. I'm unfamiliar with the Mettle ability.




I am going from memory here, but does dread necromancer give you some way to ignore stupid high SR and spell immunity and spell turning on your fear spell? Or does it give you a way to stop him from autosaving with mettle and ignoring the spell?


Spell turning doesn't work on area of affect spells, which Fear is.

Both brought up Spell Immunity and SR, I'll need to reread Fear and see if SR applies. Any spell that has SR: No bypasses spell immunity.

So basically what we need here is a Fear spell that is: Area of effect, moves you down a step on the Fear chart weather you save or do not, and has SR: No.

Also going to have to take a look at the wording of Dread Witch to see if it says "Your Fear effects" or "Your fear spells" as the second would imply that you bypass any other immunity to spells or mind-effecting with any spell you cast containing the Fear descriptor.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

Sure the check to learn that would be in the upper trillions, but with an actually infinite bonus on the check, it would be easy to reach that.
The answer could still be "there is no such a way. deal with it"

[Hiro Protagonest]

Firstly, Fear is not flagged as Mind Effecting. It moves you down a category even if you save. It does not require a to-hit check. I'm unfamiliar with the Mettle ability.

Mettle is Evasion for fort and will. So no effect if he succeeds on his save against Fear.

[Fable Wright]

The answer could still be "there is no such a way. deal with it"

That would be incorrect. As it says in the Knowledge description, "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information." That information is not useful, and so would not be gotten. Even if it was, you would recall another piece of useful information an infinite amount of times. And since it is another piece of information, it can't be the same thing. Either you would get a lead getting you to some technique that would get the desired result, or you would flat out learn the information you wanted. Or, you could learn how to get a wish with the resources near you and have knowledge of the exact wording of the wish that would get the desired result, causing you to become invulnerable to pun-pun and able to get past his weaknesses. With infinite knowledge, you would be able to beat Pun-Pun.

[JackRackham]

That would be incorrect. As it says in the Knowledge description, "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information." That information is not useful, and so would not be gotten. Even if it was, you would recall another piece of useful information an infinite amount of times. And since it is another piece of information, it can't be the same thing. Either you would get a lead getting you to some technique that would get the desired result, or you would flat out learn the information you wanted. Or, you could learn how to get a wish with the resources near you and have knowledge of the exact wording of the wish that would get the desired result, causing you to become invulnerable to pun-pun and able to get past his weaknesses. With infinite knowledge, you would be able to beat Pun-Pun.

....Except that Pun-Pun is just as capable of using this to find a way to cover his ass against every eventuality and becoming invincible. It's a paradoxical situation.

[Bakkan]

That would be incorrect. As it says in the Knowledge description, "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information." That information is not useful, and so would not be gotten. Even if it was, you would recall another piece of useful information an infinite amount of times. And since it is another piece of information, it can't be the same thing. Either you would get a lead getting you to some technique that would get the desired result, or you would flat out learn the information you wanted. Or, you could learn how to get a wish with the resources near you and have knowledge of the exact wording of the wish that would get the desired result, causing you to become invulnerable to pun-pun and able to get past his weaknesses. With infinite knowledge, you would be able to beat Pun-Pun.

I agree with D@rK-SePHiRoTH-. If a task is (actually, really, mathematically) impossible, how could a high enough Knowledge check make it possible?

[Mystify]

....Except that Pun-Pun is just as capable of using this to find a way to cover his ass against every eventuality and becoming invincible. It's a paradoxical situation.

but if he has every ability, and there is still a hole, he cannot plug it. The knowledge of how to defeat him will have to account for the fact he will know about it.

Whether such a possibility exists, I cannot say. My intelligence is not infinite.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

That would be incorrect. As it says in the Knowledge description, "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information." That information is not useful
This is a paradox. Even with infinite knowledge, I cannot find the location of the green pen inside the empty box.
Even if teh spell dictates that I recall a piece of "useful information", if the box is empty and was always empty I cannot get a useful answer to the question "where is the green pen inside the empty box?"
Notice that I'm not asking how to put a pen in the box. That is not useful as it answers a different problem.
I'm asking where the pen is. Not any pen.
I'm talking specificallyabout the pen inside the empty box (which does not exist).
How can i get useful information if there is no possible useful information?

[Fable Wright]

This is a paradox. Even with infinite knowledge, I cannot find the location of the green pen inside the empty box.
Even if teh spell dictates that I recall a piece of "useful information", if the box is empty and was always empty I cannot get a useful answer to the question "where is the green pen inside the empty box?"
Notice that I'm not asking how to put a pen in the box. That is not useful as it answers a different problem.
I'm asking where the pen is. Not any pen.
I'm talking specificallyabout the pen inside the empty box (which does not exist).
How can i get useful information if there is no possible useful information?

This empty box, in another universe, still fundamentally the same box, has a green pen inside of it. You know the location of this universe, where the box is located within this universe, and where the pen is located within this box, which is the same box, just in a different universe, and where the individual pen that you were referring to, the same as it was in this universe, is located, in this alternative universe. You know where the green pen in the empty box is. There is always possible useful information.

[Gotterdammerung]

This empty box, in another universe, still fundamentally the same box, has a green pen inside of it. You know the location of this universe, where the box is located within this universe, and where the pen is located within this box, which is the same box, just in a different universe, and where the individual pen that you were referring to, the same as it was in this universe, is located, in this alternative universe. You know where the green pen in the empty box is. There is always possible useful information.

If you bring an alternate universe into the campaign, then pun pun instantly gets to scour through all that universe has to offer and suck it dry as well.

Your trying to reach outside the box to find a solution. Pun pun already casually strolled outside the box, ate the box, pooped out a circle and is currently lighting the circle on fire.

[NNescio]

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor)

[Fable Wright]

If you bring an alternate universe into the campaign, then pun pun instantly gets to scour through all that universe has to offer and suck it dry as well.

Your trying to reach outside the box to find a solution. Pun pun already casually strolled outside the box, ate the box, pooped out a circle and is currently lighting the circle on fire.

Not necessarily. If the inside of the box is the multiverse, outside of the box is the Far Realms, where Pun-Pun's powers may be simply rendered useless. It functions off of concepts completely alien to this universe, and could feasibly have some place with a solution to Pun-Pun without Pun-Pun being able to go there and sabotage attempts to do so.

[Ellrin]

If we assume that there is an ability that exists in RAW to reach the far realms (or any other "out-of-multiverse" space) and effectively discover and exploit one of Pun-Pun's weaknesses, wouldn't that necessitate that Pun-Pun, who has every ability in RAW, is at least equally capable of going there, discovering this weakness himself, and at least attempting to cover for it, if not outright preventing the discovery in the first place? I'd never heard of Pun-Pun until a few days ago, but it seems to me that the problem with a being that can do anything possible within the framework of the universe is that he can then go and do anything you can do to try and stop him before that, regardless of whether that solution is within the original universe or not. I will say it doesn't necessitate that his attempt to stop you within the framework of a new universe succeeds, but that has to be determined by principles and rules as yet ungiven.

[D@rK-SePHiRoTH-]

This empty box, in another universe, still fundamentally the same box
I do not agree with this premise. The box was defined as "empty". A nonempty box hardly is the same empty box

[candycorn]

Firstly, Fear is not flagged as Mind Effecting. It moves you down a category even if you save. It does not require a to-hit check. I'm unfamiliar with the Mettle ability.
The Fear (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fear.htm) spell is listed as Mind-affecting.

Second, Mettle states that if a spell has a saving effect of: Fort Partial or Will Partial, then it has no effect on a passed save.

Therefore, Pun Pun, as a greater deity with Mettle and Evasion, automatically rolls a 20 on all saves, and thus, for any half/partial effect, will suffer no penalties.


That would be incorrect. As it says in the Knowledge description, "For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information." That information is not useful, and so would not be gotten. Even if it was, you would recall another piece of useful information an infinite amount of times. And since it is another piece of information, it can't be the same thing. Either you would get a lead getting you to some technique that would get the desired result, or you would flat out learn the information you wanted. Or, you could learn how to get a wish with the resources near you and have knowledge of the exact wording of the wish that would get the desired result, causing you to become invulnerable to pun-pun and able to get past his weaknesses. With infinite knowledge, you would be able to beat Pun-Pun.

Concerning Knowledge checks and "always useful information".

Pun Pun could just as easily perform the Omnifiscer trick, and gain infinite useful knowledge for: "How do I prevent any and all attempts to kill me based on knowledge from succeeding". Since there is always useful knowledge, he'll receive it, and be able to prevent Omnifiscers.

Alternately, "How can I ensure I am immune to any attempt to destroy me, defeat me, or otherwise inconvenience me in a way that I don't want" will always produce useful information, right?

Therefore, the very ability you have, which, by definition, Pun Pun also has, protects Pun Pun from itself... Under your own interpretation.

[Acanous]

I suppose you could pre-buff by wishing that your fear spells target reflex for the day. That starts getting hazy by the rules, though.

As for the "Knowledge to beat Punpun", I think if you had a result that high, the resulting information gleaned would be the exact sounds you'd have to utter in order to create an argument for why he'd want to stop existing. (IE, arguing him to death with a knowledge check)

[Mystify]

If we assume that there is an ability that exists in RAW to reach the far realms (or any other "out-of-multiverse" space) and effectively discover and exploit one of Pun-Pun's weaknesses, wouldn't that necessitate that Pun-Pun, who has every ability in RAW, is at least equally capable of going there, discovering this weakness himself, and at least attempting to cover for it, if not outright preventing the discovery in the first place? I'd never heard of Pun-Pun until a few days ago, but it seems to me that the problem with a being that can do anything possible within the framework of the universe is that he can then go and do anything you can do to try and stop him before that, regardless of whether that solution is within the original universe or not. I will say it doesn't necessitate that his attempt to stop you within the framework of a new universe succeeds, but that has to be determined by principles and rules as yet ungiven.
If a counter to pun pun exists, then by its very nature it is uncounterable. If it was counterable, then pun pun would counter it, and hence it wouldn't be the counter to pun pun. So saying "A weakness can't exist or pun pun will patch it" is wrong.

For example, what if you do have a method of defeating pun pun. It is uncounterable, so pun pun would fall to it. However, pun pun can detect the build being developed, and will go to nip it in the bud. However, the build involves the ability to time travel, so the completed build goes back in time and protects its own timeline from pun pun. Thereby creating an entity that ensures its own existence, and can deploy its anti-pun pun capabilities to do so.

Yes, this is a paradox, but depending on your time travel model, it could be considered valid. The omnificer is likely the starting point of this build, and uses its abilities to learn how to accomplish this. With an infinite int, learning how to abuse temporal mechanics is a cinch. Pun pun can't squish him, since he is protected by the anti-pun pun.

Pun pun can't use this technique himself. Sure, he could protect his timeline, and stop attempts to kill him preascention. However, the anti-pun pun is not trying to kill him preascention, but post-ascention. Pun pun has to kill anti-pun pun preascention, since he is designed to win in a confrontation post ascention. Thus creating a disparity between the two exploitable by the antipun pun.

Once the antipun pun defeats pun pun, there is no pun pun protecting his own timeline. Hence, the antipun pun can kill pun pun preascention. This means pun pun will never exist, and neither will anti-pun pun. This collapses the temporal status of pun pun and anti pun pun, resulting in a universe where neither exists, since the creation of pun pun leads to its destruction, whilst the non-emergence is stable.

Its 2AM and I had 4 hours of sleep, so this could use refinement, but I think my basic idea works.
tl;dr due to temporal shenanigans, the existence of pun pun will lead to the creation of an anti-pun pun, who can defeat him and whip him from ever being developed. This means that a universe with pun pun is not stable, and will never even occur.

[Ellrin]

I suppose you could pre-buff by wishing that your fear spells target reflex for the day. That starts getting hazy by the rules, though.

Except Pun-Pun has Evasion, so targeting his Ref save doesn't work, either.

[Acanous]

I know there's at least one way to negate evasion. Don't know if it works on Mettle, though.

[ScionoftheVoid]

Firstly, Fear is not flagged as Mind Effecting. It moves you down a category even if you save. It does not require a to-hit check. I'm unfamiliar with the Mettle ability.

Spell turning doesn't work on area of affect spells, which Fear is.

Both brought up Spell Immunity and SR, I'll need to reread Fear and see if SR applies. Any spell that has SR: No bypasses spell immunity.

So basically what we need here is a Fear spell that is: Area of effect, moves you down a step on the Fear chart weather you save or do not, and has SR: No.

Also going to have to take a look at the wording of Dread Witch to see if it says "Your Fear effects" or "Your fear spells" as the second would imply that you bypass any other immunity to spells or mind-effecting with any spell you cast containing the Fear descriptor.

I think you'll find that it is, in fact, Mind-Affecting.

If you make the save and become Shaken, it lasts for one round. If that weren't problem enough, fear effects from the same source don't stack anyway, so you'll have to find two other things to do this with.

Mettle is basically Evasion for Will and Fort saves; save for half/partial becomes save negates.

Fine, but it doesn't help.

Spell resistance does indeed apply, making this totally useless.

You also need three of these, since ones from the same source don't stack. You also need it to be non-Mind-Affecting (good luck with that). You also need enough mobility and messing with time effects to get the chance to cast these spells. It would be far more likely to work if you managed to get it on a Conjuration (Creation) effect with Duration: Instantaneous, so that it could get through an Anti-Magic Field (again, good luck with that). Or just non-magical, I suppose, which is easier but not by all that much and certainly not for finding enough to get all three steps. Also, is the Dread Witch's ability that allows this a Death effect? Because that also stops this dead (haha).

This strategy is full of holes. If it worked, it would almost certainly be known as such. Almost nothing is capable of killing Pun-Pun post-ascension. Perhaps nothing at all is (much more likely if abilities don't have to be printed to be gained).

[candycorn]

The issue is: If you can do it, Pun Pun can do it. If Pun Pun is vulnerable to it, then you are vulnerable to it. If pun pun has a pre-established power base, then he can do it immediately, in all timelines.

Therefore, any ability which has the ability to defeat pun pun must:
1) not be defeatable by itself- i.e. not all powerful. If it were, Pun Pun will defeat you with it.

2) be able to defeat a creature protected by itself- i.e. all, powerful. If it's not able to do this, Pun Pun will use the ability to shield himself from it.

3) be able to gain access to how to kill a creature protected by it, and every other ability. If not, you can't gain access to knowledge of how to kill pun pun.

4) not be able to be accessed for information on how to kill a creature protected by it. If it is possible for pun pun to know about you, and how to defeat your protections, he will.

5) not rely on vecna-blooded. Pun Pun can defeat vecna and a god of knowledge and take over his portfolio in about as long as it takes you to realize you want to do something. Now, he knows of any knowledge or secret based technique you wish to employ, before you do it. He regresses himself to the beginning of time, and spreads himself out through time, and anywhere you go, no matter what you do, it's stopped.

It's not that killing pun pun creates a paradox. It's that the ability that would need to be created to kill pun pun is itself a paradox.

[Eisenfavl]

Post Ascension Pun-Pun cannot be beaten, at all.
I think people on most other sites have just accepted that it is impossible.

This thread (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2705.0) is a good list of things to try and counter. Of note, Jovoc's aura + divine splendour + instantaneous movement, aided by NI sized effects and truly infinite knowledge checks, meaning that with it's NI actions (which are not limited, but rather countable. Pun-Pun can attack every single creature in existence because that is a countable number).

What this means, is that Pun-Pun knows every single threat, and can respond by throwing a body which instantly kills any mortal and non-tanar'ri. Immunities can be bypassed, and NI sized TI DC'd NI% item destroying disjunction can take care of that.

Any Tanar'ri can be attacked with Pun-Pun's NI attacks for NI damage which bypass immunities and virtually anything and thus undeniably kill them.

In theory, Aleax's and people with alter reality permanencied immunity spells should survive. Non-mortals, that is.
So, a theoretical deity which buffs itself and alter realities the spells could survive.



Harming Pun-Pun itself doesn't work. Aleax's Singular Enemy (Ex) by itself makes this totally impossible, as the singular enemy is one of Pun-Pun's NI bodies. Plus half the bodies, which are obviously immune to bludgeoning, will also have the Zodar's Invulnerability (Ex), so they are immune to even helpful attacks.

[Alleran]

meaning that with it's NI actions (which are not limited, but rather countable. Pun-Pun can attack every single creature in existence because that is a countable number).
Actually, can he attack every single creature in existence? Because by definition, planes such as the Abyss have infinite creatures on them, and "infinite" is not a countable number AFAIK. Pun-Pun doesn't have infinite actions, only an arbitrarily high number of them. He can't attack every creature in existence, because that is an infinite number, and he only has NI actions. He could have a truly ridiculous number of them, but even a Googolplex wouldn't be high enough, because it's still not infinite.

[sonofzeal]

Actually, can he attack every single creature in existence? Because by definition, planes such as the Abyss have infinite creatures on them, and "infinite" is not a countable number AFAIK. Pun-Pun doesn't have infinite actions, only an arbitrarily high number of them. He can't attack every creature in existence, because that is an infinite number, and he only has NI actions. He could have a truly ridiculous number of them, but even a Googolplex wouldn't be high enough, because it's still not infinite.
There's different orders of infinities (Aleph-null, Aleph-one, Aleph-two, etc). Aleph-null is equivalent to the number of whole numbers, and is countable - meaning you can count towards it, even though you won't reach it in a finite amount of time. Aleph-one is equivalent ot the number of real numbers, and us uncountable - no system can organize you into counting towards it in any meaningful way.

Planes of the Abyss are Aleph-null. We know this because they're given numbers, and a rough heirarchy. And in D&D, every plane is reducible to a 5' grid lattice, which is also Aleph-null. Any number of Aleph-nulls can be combined in these ways while still remaining Aleph-null. I can devise a search algorithm that makes an attack on every square of every plane of the Abyss in Aleph-null actions, even if we're including 3-dimensional topologies for each of them.


tl;dr - If Pun-Pun has Aleph-null actions, he can attack everything on every plane. Except possibly the Far Realms, and maybe even then.

[Alleran]

Planes of the Abyss are Aleph-null. We know this because they're given numbers, and a rough heirarchy.
While the "different orders of infinite" thing went a little bit over my head (I'm no mathematician, though I think I understand the basic concept), I'm fairly sure the Abyss would be infinite ("Aleph-One" or higher):

"The boundless Abyss and its countless layers spawn innumerable hordes of fiends..." ~page 6 of FC1
"Spawned directly from and by the forces of chaos, there are incalculable kinds of demons in the universe..." ~page 6 of FC1
"For numerological reasons, many scholars believe the number of 'infinite' Abyssal layers to equal 666, but at the current rate of discovery it seems likely that there are many more." ~page 106 of FC1
"The Abyss goes on forever in the form of an infinite number of layers, although its well-known realms are bounded." ~page 100 of Manual of the Planes (the planar trait of the Abyss itself)
"As noted before, the Abyss has layers beyond count..." ~page 100 of Manual of the Planes

Even individual places within the Abyss are infinite, such as the Abyssian ocean, "a trackless and bottomless sea" full of demons, which "touches upon all the mighty seas and oceans of the infinite plane" (i.e. it reaches an infinite number of locations). Then there's the Infinite Staircase, which also goes up and down to an infinite length (with an infinite number of portals and landings). Infinite layers, each with an infinite population of demons on them, means infinite demons. Am I correct?


Except possibly the Far Realms, and maybe even then.
The Far Realms has a total population equalling negative-forty-two-breadsticks-with-butter-and-cheese-on-them, so I'm not sure it'd be applicable.

[sonofzeal]

While the "different orders of infinite" thing went a little bit over my head (I'm no mathematician, though I think I understand the basic concept), I'm fairly sure the Abyss would be infinite ("Aleph-One" or higher):

"The boundless Abyss and its countless layers spawn innumerable hordes of fiends..." ~page 6 of FC1
"Spawned directly from and by the forces of chaos, there are incalculable kinds of demons in the universe..." ~page 6 of FC1
"For numerological reasons, many scholars believe the number of 'infinite' Abyssal layers to equal 666, but at the current rate of discovery it seems likely that there are many more." ~page 106 of FC1
"The Abyss goes on forever in the form of an infinite number of layers, although its well-known realms are bounded." ~page 100 of Manual of the Planes (the planar trait of the Abyss itself)
"As noted before, the Abyss has layers beyond count..." ~page 100 of Manual of the Planes

Even individual places within the Abyss are infinite, such as the Abyssian ocean, "a trackless and bottomless sea" full of demons, which "touches upon all the mighty seas and oceans of the infinite plane" (i.e. it reaches an infinite number of locations). Then there's the Infinite Staircase, which also goes up and down to an infinite length (with an infinite number of portals and landings). Infinite layers, each with an infinite population of demons on them, means infinite demons. Am I correct?
You misunderstand - Aleph-null is infinite. It's so infinite, it can swallow an infinite number of other infinities and not be any more or less infinite. That it's the lowest order of infinity doesn't make it any less mind-bogglingly infinite.

Watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK5Z709J2eo), especially 3:07 - 3:40


The Far Realms has a total population equalling negative-forty-two-breadsticks-with-butter-and-cheese-on-them, so I'm not sure it'd be applicable.
The reason I quibble here is because the books suggest the fundamental topology of the Far Realms is N-dimensional, but even being N-dimensional wouldn't be sufficient as long as it's carved up into a 5' cube lattice - which it might not be, but merely being non-euclidean isn't sufficient.

[Ellrin]

Take into consideration that there are creatures that are small enough, by RAW, to fit multiple examples in a single five-foot cube--and RAW, as far as I'm aware, doesn't put a limit to the number of at least certain such creatures that can fit in a single five-foot cube. Your limitation based on the Abyss being breakable into an aleph-null lattice, therefore, may not apply to the number of creatures in the Abyss.

[sonofzeal]

Take into consideration that there are creatures that are small enough, by RAW, to fit multiple examples in a single five-foot cube--and RAW, as far as I'm aware, doesn't put a limit to the number of at least certain such creatures that can fit in a single five-foot cube. Your limitation based on the Abyss being breakable into an aleph-null lattice, therefore, may not apply to the number of creatures in the Abyss.
The scary thing about infinity is that, if it's enough to do something once, it's enough to do something an infinite number of times. As long as the number of creatures in each square is an integer, or even a fraction (strange as that sounds), the same logic still applies.

[motoko's ghost]

This is what I like about GitP, theoretical discussions about games and character builds involving abstract maths about the nature of infinity.:smalltongue:

[Alleran]

You misunderstand - Aleph-null is infinite. It's so infinite, it can swallow an infinite number of other infinities and not be any more or less infinite. That it's the lowest order of infinity doesn't make it any less mind-bogglingly infinite.

Watch this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DK5Z709J2eo), especially 3:07 - 3:40
Okay. So if Aleph-null is countable (even if you can't reach it in finite time) and still infinite, how can Pun-Pun reach it, since he doesn't have (AFAIK) infinite time on his hands to do so? Wouldn't at best his number of attacks only be arbitrarily high, because he's still done it in a finite time period? He'd have to have infinite ("Aleph-null") amounts of time to generate that kind of infinite number of attacks. Or am I missing something again?


The reason I quibble here is because the books suggest the fundamental topology of the Far Realms is N-dimensional, but even being N-dimensional wouldn't be sufficient as long as it's carved up into a 5' cube lattice - which it might not be, but merely being non-euclidean isn't sufficient.
It's probably more a 5 foot cube where "foot" means a purple-sea-monster-from-the-nightmare-of-a-thirty-seven-year-old-infant-with-a-fondness-for-live-dead-cows and "cube" means a ninety-four-fold-visual-gradient-of-stomach-acid-with-eighty-three-variable-molecular-phenotypes.

[sonofzeal]

Okay. So if Aleph-null is countable (even if you can't reach it in finite time) and still infinite, how can Pun-Pun reach it, since he doesn't have (AFAIK) infinite time on his hands to do so? Wouldn't at best his number of attacks only be arbitrarily high, because he's still done it in a finite time period? He'd have to have infinite ("Aleph-null") amounts of time to generate that kind of infinite number of attacks. Or am I missing something again?
It's very difficult to produce true infinities in D&D, but possible. The Omniscificer method is one way - set up a feedback loop where each A triggers two B's, and each B triggers two A's. Start the loop running and it immediately blows up to Aleph-null in no time at all.

I know Pun-Pun has true-infinite ability scores, AC, saves, and skill checks. I don't know of a method to get true-infinite actions unless Manipulate Form grants abilities that don't actually exist in the game, and I've never liked that interpretation. But if he has aleph-null actions and aleph-null reach, then he can make an aleph-null number of attacks on every square of an aleph-null number of planes of the Abyss, each of which extends aleph-null distance in aleph-null directions.

Infinities are terrifying.


It's probably more a 5 foot cube where "foot" means a purple-sea-monster-from-the-nightmare-of-a-thirty-seven-year-old-infant-with-a-fondness-for-live-dead-cows and "cube" means a ninety-four-fold-visual-gradient-of-stomach-acid-with-eighty-three-variable-molecular-phenotypes.
Honestly, I think it actually diminishes the Far Realms to make them quite that nonsensical. It goes from being Lovecraftian Horror to being Jabberwockian whimsy, and I think that's a loss. The Far Realms are incomprehensible, yes, but I've always seen them as being related to our own reality, just twisted and alien. The books are pretty silent here on its exact nature, just that it's weird. Still, it does describe at least the basics of potentially travelling there, and the description given sounds like an N-dimensional non-euclidean topology, but a topology nonetheless.

[motoko's ghost]

If anything the far-realms is probably a...I think its called boolean hypernumber (a graph were the axes are zero and numbers beyond positive and negative infinity,theorised as a way of linking all graphs in existence), it's really just the bizzare incomprehensible "space"between the different multiverses (greyhawk,eberron:smalltongue:, but you get what I mean)

EDIT:turns out they're actually called Musean hypernumbers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musean_hypernumber#The_remaining_levels) and they're used to compute things beyond positive and negative infinity, where even pun-pun cannot reach.

[kardar233]

I love infinities. See the guy running around with a quote of mine. Only branch of mathematics ever to drive someone clinically insane.

The thing is, I don't think Pun-Pun ever actually gets to infinities. For example, his stat-boosting method (use stat boost on familiar, familiar returns higher stat via Manipulate Form, repeat) just gets you arbitrarily high. For real infinity you'd need to run a loop that takes no time at all, like the Omniscificer trick. If you know ways he can get true infinite stats and similar, share it, because I haven't seen it.


Okay. So if Aleph-null is countable (even if you can't reach it in finite time) and still infinite, how can Pun-Pun reach it, since he doesn't have (AFAIK) infinite time on his hands to do so? Wouldn't at best his number of attacks only be arbitrarily high, because he's still done it in a finite time period? He'd have to have infinite ("Aleph-null") amounts of time to generate that kind of infinite number of attacks. Or am I missing something again?

I don't think Pun-Pun can set up an infinite attack loop on multiple targets at any distance including extraplanar. Sure, you can hit infinite attacks using a Lightning Maces/Roundabout Kick Aptitude combo, but I don't think they can split targets and I don't know of any way of making attacks across planar boundaries, which the Abyssal layers effectively are.

[sonofzeal]

I love infinities. See the guy running around with a quote of mine. Only branch of mathematics ever to drive someone clinically insane.

The thing is, I don't think Pun-Pun ever actually gets to infinities. For example, his stat-boosting method (use stat boost on familiar, familiar returns higher stat via Manipulate Form, repeat) just gets you arbitrarily high. For real infinity you'd need to run a loop that takes no time at all, like the Omniscificer trick. If you know ways he can get true infinite stats and similar, share it, because I haven't seen it.



I don't think Pun-Pun can set up an infinite attack loop on multiple targets at any distance including extraplanar. Sure, you can hit infinite attacks using a Lightning Maces/Roundabout Kick Aptitude combo, but I don't think they can split targets and I don't know of any way of making attacks across planar boundaries, which the Abyssal layers effectively are.
I know for a fact that one of the last stumbling blocks to be overcome was trying to get Pun-Pun infinite reach. I remember hearing someone succeeded, and furthermore found a way for him to reach across planar boundaries, but I don't know the method. For the latter, presumably some creature has that ability and Pun-Pun granted it to himself. IIRC it required him to be on the Astral Plane to really take advantage of, since the Astral Plane is "adjacent to" every other plane.

I think Tleilaxu_Ghola had some resources on getting aleph-null actions through abuse of Psionics, Affinity Field in particular. Actually, I think he had three different methods. I once tried putting together a way to get Aleph-one actions, using his resources, but failed pretty thoroughly; my understanding of infinities wasn't as developed as I thought it was, and I was barking up the wrong tree entirely.

[Ellrin]

The scary thing about infinity is that, if it's enough to do something once, it's enough to do something an infinite number of times. As long as the number of creatures in each square is an integer, or even a fraction (strange as that sounds), the same logic still applies.

Oh, I'm aware of that much. I'm not giving this much thought, admittedly, but I don't think we have a method of determining whether the number of creatures in each square is actually rational or not--well, it probably would be in the abyss, but let's extend the metaphor to the Far Realms, where, as you mentioned, things are weird. I have no trouble with an interpretation of the plane where it's possible to have an irrational, or even imaginary, number of creatures within a given square.

[sonofzeal]

Oh, I'm aware of that much. I'm not giving this much thought, admittedly, but I don't think we have a method of determining whether the number of creatures in each square is actually rational or not--well, it probably would be in the abyss, but let's extend the metaphor to the Far Realms, where, as you mentioned, things are weird. I have no trouble with an interpretation of the plane where it's possible to have an irrational, or even imaginary, number of creatures within a given square.
If there are PI creatures within a given square, and Pun-Pun makes four attacks, does every creature in that square get attacked? I don't think we have the tools to answer that within D&D.

Actually, the bigger problem might be a lack of a method to sort the creatures within the square. To apply the algorithm you need to be able to choose a scheme - any scheme - that arranges the creatures first-second-third-etc. Even with a milder take on the Far Realms, that might not be possible. And heck, aren't the Far Realms non-adjacent with the Astral Plane? That alone would prevent this whole issue coming up!

Okay, I think we can assume that Pun-Pun can't attack every creature within the Far Realms. I still maintain he can attack every creature in the Abyss, because all layers of the Abyss have more conventional natures and are all adjacent with the Astral Plane. But there are probably entities out there Pun-Pun can't attack, at least not simultaneously with his attack on everything else.

[grautry]

This (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2705.0) might be helpful for the discussion.

The list details Pun-Pun's various infinities, nigh-infinities, utterly ridiculous abilities and other interesting traits.

[Radar]

Considering the infinities of possible targets, it's not much of a problem, when you can throw around Aleph 1 spells with a single action (Arcane Fusion abuse).

[Mystify]

Ok, let me try this again now that I am awake:

A given timeline must be self-consistent. Paradoxes can exist, as long as they fulfill their own requirements. This means that the grandfather paradox cannot occur, because that would make the universe inconsistent. However, the ontological paradox can work, since it satisfies the conditions of its own existence.

So, suppose pun pun exists. Some kobold ascends, and gains all his power. Pun pun then does something that would prompt someone to try to stop him. They perform the omnisifier trick, and learn how to defeat him. This likely involves becoming pun pun yourself. Once he becomes powerful enough to defeat pun pun, he patrols his own timeline, protecting it from any attacks from pun pun. Since defeating the anti-pun pun preascention would mean he never becomes a threat, pun pun wouldn't know he actually becomes a threat, and it would create a paradox. Therefor, pun pun cannot successfully defeat the anti pun pun pre-ascention, and if he attempts to do so, anti-pun pun will win the battle.

Pun pun will likewise guard his own timeline, so trying to take him out pre-ascention will have the same effect on anti-pun pun; he would lose the encounter, and be unable to defeat the pre-ascention pun pun due to paradox guiding the outcome.

This leads to a conflict between pun pun and anti pun pun. They have the same infinite stats, and the same stats are nigh infinite. However, while infinity = infinity, nigh-infinite =/= night infinite. They may be arbitrarily high, but they are not equally arbitrarily high. Therein lies a potential vulnerability of pun pun.

In any case, Pun Pun and anti Pun Pun engage in an epic battle of infinities and ridiculousness. If there is a vulnerability to pun pun, anti pun pun exploits it, and wins. If not, they do battle, and one of them wins due to chance.

If anti-pun pun wins, he can go back in time and assault pun pun's timeline. He knows everywhere pun pun was, how he defended his timeline, and he cannot change it because he has been defeated and there is no future self to plug any vulnerabilities. Assuming that pun pun premptively guarded his entire timeline, anti-pun pun will be stronger. He now has unlimited time to build his nigh infinites higher than pun pun's were at the time of guarding his timeline at that point. He is now the stronger omniscient being, and can attack with a known outcome of success. he defeats the old pun pun guarding his timeline, and takes out pun pun before ascension. This creates the grandfather paradox, as anti-pun pun only formed in reponse to pun pun.

Therefore, that event could not happen.

The question becomes: what did happen? Well, it depends. If the pun pun anti pun pun climatic battle was reliant soley on chance, then anti pun pun cannot win. To do so will lead to a paradox, and so pun pun will win based on pure chance. Pun puns continued existance is paradox free, and pun pun is undeafatable.

If pun pun has a weakness, then anti-pun pun wins the battle, and leads to the grandfather paradox. Which means that this entire scenario would lead to paradox. The core of this scenario is that pun pun was formed. Therefore, pun pun forming leads to a grandfather paradox, and hence it would never actually happen.

In summary:
If pun pun exists and has a weakness, then he will never occur.

So, if pun pun has a weakness, he will never ascend in the first place. That sequence of events will not unfold.

ergo, if pun pun actually exists, he has no weakness. If you find yourself in a universe with pun pun, he has no weakness. This does not mean that pun pun has no weakness, since there is no actual universe with pun pun- he is purely theoretical. But he cannot exist without lacking a weakness.

[Gotterdammerung]

There is a major flaw in bringing science and reason into a raw D and D discussion.

Science and reason are not RAW. There are entire threads devoted to pointing out the ridiculous inconsistencies in the D&D world. Farmers who occasionally leap 20 feet, mortals walking the bottom of the ocean without being crushed like bugs by the pressure, mortals flying on boats through space, and various other things make great examples of how science and reason are unreliable tools to grasp the nature of a D&D existence.

We have silently agreed to limit Pun Pun to pre-existing raw D&D potential, not allowing him to make up powerful abilities. It is therefore, entirely fair to restrict the opposition by saying, stop with the scientific reasoning, it isn't RAW and it isn't valid.

Or

We can agree to the reverse, if you can use scientific laws to attempt to defeat pun pun, then pun pun can also go outside of RAW and create his own abilities.


Now let us also completely remove time travel here and now. The challenge proposed- Can pun pun be defeated AFTER he has completed his ascension?
Therefore, Time Travel is an irrelevant solution to the challenge, as it requires that you kill pun pun BEFORE ascension.
Personally, I do not even believe time travel works but that is beside the point.
Traveling back in time to kill Pun Pun BEFORE he has gained his power is in direct violation of the challenge.


Ok, with that taken care of, the only viable solution being discussed is using a knowledge glitch to gain the knowledge of how to defeat pun pun.

I see some flaws with this plan, some of which have been pointed out.

#1 The knowledge you seek might not exist. There may literally be NO WAY to defeat Pun Pun.

#2 Pun Pun already has infinite knowledge without the trick. If you can use the trick to find a way to kill him, it stands to reason, he can use his infinite knowledge to know a way to stop you.

#3 Knowing how to stop him does not guarantee you will have the ability to execute the solution. In other words, finding out what it takes to kill pun pun is one thing, being able to do it is another. Example, your omnificier trick teaches you that a rare being called "Game Master" can defeat Pun Pun. Knowing this fact does not make you Game Master. Knowing this fact does not put you closer to finding Game Master. Knowing this fact does in fact do nothing for you.

[Tr011]

That's the Omniscifier. It can't actually defeat Pun-Pun (because Pun-Pun has an ability called "No Weakness or Weaknesses"), it was just made to prevent it. When Pun-Pun became available at level 1, that stopped.

Also, the drowning thing to bring you to 0 HP doesn't work, because, by RAW, there's no way to stop drowning once you start. So you'd be in a permanent state of limbo until someone takes pity and kills you.

You just need a way to get a standard action to use Iron Heart Surge.

[Ellrin]

<snip>

You seem to be assuming that Pun-Pun must (a) inevitably draw to him somebody willing and capable of becoming Pun-Pun, himself, as an opponent; (b) that Pun-Pun would not move pre-emptively against anybody willing and capable of becoming Pun-Pun in the interests of eventually defeating original Pun-Pun; and (c) that Pun-Pun, with the ability to quite simply become nigh-omniscient (truly omniscient? I've never looked at the omniscificer build), would not do so at least temporarily to discover his own weaknesses so that he can therefore move to protect himself--not mechanically, but by never acting in a way as to provoke another into becoming Pun-Pun in order to defeat him--which, in itself, effectively eliminates the weakness.

Actually, that makes a rather interesting situation. There seem to be only two ways Pun-Pun with a weakness can act in order not to invite the anti-Pun-Pun into becoming, assuming a reality with infinite creatures across its various timelines: to either destroy all life and all possibility of life across all of time and across every plane of existence in every universe, and every space outside the multiverse--which may not be possible, as was discussed earlier with the Far Realms, and certainly isn't possible assuming the grandfather paradox to not work, since pre-ascension Pun-Pun exists; or else to essentially remove himself entirely from reality, acting at best as a distant, effectively omnipotent and omniscient god-figure which, as far as the multiverse is concerned, may not exist at all.

Unless he decides to save all life by sending his only son to be sacrificed for the good of all. Or, I dunno, let Asmodeus torture some dude because he's bored and then show up in a tornado and say "You see this Leviathan? You see this Leviathan!? Worship me, damn it!"

[Mystify]

You seem to be assuming that Pun-Pun must (a) inevitably draw to him somebody willing and capable of becoming Pun-Pun, himself, as an opponent; (b) that Pun-Pun would not move pre-emptively against anybody willing and capable of becoming Pun-Pun in the interests of eventually defeating original Pun-Pun; and (c) that Pun-Pun, with the ability to quite simply become nigh-omniscient (truly omniscient? I've never looked at the omniscificer build), would not do so at least temporarily to discover his own weaknesses so that he can therefore move to protect himself--not mechanically, but by never acting in a way as to provoke another into becoming Pun-Pun in order to defeat him--which, in itself, effectively eliminates the weakness.

Actually, that makes a rather interesting situation. There seem to be only two ways Pun-Pun with a weakness can act in order not to invite the anti-Pun-Pun into becoming, assuming a reality with infinite creatures across its various timelines: to either destroy all life and all possibility of life across all of time and across every plane of existence in every universe, and every space outside the multiverse--which may not be possible, as was discussed earlier with the Far Realms, and certainly isn't possible assuming the grandfather paradox to not work, since pre-ascension Pun-Pun exists; or else to essentially remove himself entirely from reality, acting at best as a distant, effectively omnipotent and omniscient god-figure which, as far as the multiverse is concerned, may not exist at all.

Unless he decides to save all life by sending his only son to be sacrificed for the good of all. Or, I dunno, let Asmodeus torture some dude because he's bored and then show up in a tornado and say "You see this Leviathan? You see this Leviathan!? Worship me, damn it!"
a) yes, but I think that is ineviteable, across all of history. I mean, how long did it take us to decide to try to find counters, and then come up with the omnificer? Once you have the omnificer, everything else falls into place.
b)but the anti-pun pun protects his own timeline so pun pun cannot preemptively stop his ascention. If we don't allow you to protect your own past timelime, then a god will notice what is happening and stop it. Since a god did not stop pun pun, it is because pun pun himself prevented it to ensure his own ascention.
c) I did not assume that. I've stated that if he has a weakness, due to its fundamental nature it must be something he cannot guard against. Him knowing about it would therefore not allow him to protect himself against it.

The first scenario you present to stop an opponent from rising doesn 't work. Destroying all life prevents pun pun from existing in the first place. As you said, it runs into the grandfather paradox. Though leaving the timeline pre-ascention intact, and never going there, and destroying everything that exists post-ascention could work. Unless people can divine that it will happen and try to stop it beforehand, and something of that magnitude should be noticeable.

The latter could work.

[gkathellar]

b)but the anti-pun pun protects his own timeline so pun pun cannot preemptively stop his ascention. If we don't allow you to protect your own past timelime, then a god will notice what is happening and stop it. Since a god did not stop pun pun, it is because pun pun himself prevented it to ensure his own ascention.

That would require Pun Pun to allow Anti-Pun Pun to arise in the first place. Since he's actually omniscient and functionally omnipotent, there's no reason he would allow it to happen.

Basically, it comes down to who becomes Pun Pun first. The first person to get there has the opportunity to lock out everyone else, and only their own ascension is inevitable because they're the only Pun Pun.

EDIT: Right, my MSPA senses just turned on. I see what you're saying, but it's basically contingent on having a "true" timeline in which there are two Pun Puns. You might as well posit a true timeline with three Pun Puns or, really, n Pun Puns. For most intents and purposes, it's more useful to assume Pun Pun works from a straight line of cause and effect where if it happened in the first place, the original had to allow it in the first place.

[Ellrin]

a) yes, but I think that is ineviteable, across all of history. I mean, how long did it take us to decide to try to find counters, and then come up with the omnificer? Once you have the omnificer, everything else falls into place.
b)but the anti-pun pun protects his own timeline so pun pun cannot preemptively stop his ascention. If we don't allow you to protect your own past timelime, then a god will notice what is happening and stop it. Since a god did not stop pun pun, it is because pun pun himself prevented it to ensure his own ascention.
c) I did not assume that. I've stated that if he has a weakness, due to its fundamental nature it must be something he cannot guard against. Him knowing about it would therefore not allow him to protect himself against it.

The first scenario you present to stop an opponent from rising doesn 't work. Destroying all life prevents pun pun from existing in the first place. As you said, it runs into the grandfather paradox. Though leaving the timeline pre-ascention intact, and never going there, and destroying everything that exists post-ascention could work. Unless people can divine that it will happen and try to stop it beforehand, and something of that magnitude should be noticeable.

The latter could work.

c) Of course he wouldn't be able to defend against it mechanically, which is what I assumed we were limiting ourselves to at the moment; but he should be able to act in a way that prevents others from deciding to rise against him in the first place, with some assumptions in place. As I mentioned, effectively, this would nullify the weakness altogether, but I do think it would be an interesting permutation if the reason why Pun-Pun lacked an effective weakness, despite actually possessing a mechanical one, is due to necessary fluff.

Anyway, yeah, as mentioned, there's probably a few reasons the first idea (destroy EVERYTHING!) wouldn't work, not just the grandfather paradox.

[Mystify]

That would require Pun Pun to allow Anti-Pun Pun to arise in the first place. Since he's actually omniscient and functionally omnipotent, there's no reason he would allow it to happen.

Basically, it comes down to who becomes Pun Pun first. The first person to get there has the opportunity to lock out everyone else, and only their own ascension is inevitable because they're the only Pun Pun.

EDIT: Right, my MSPA senses just turned on. I see what you're saying, but it's basically contingent on having a "true" timeline in which there are two Pun Puns. You might as well posit a true timeline with three Pun Puns or, really, n Pun Puns. For most intents and purposes, it's more useful to assume Pun Pun works from a straight line of cause and effect where if it happened in the first place, the original had to allow it in the first place.

your edit is right. You need more rules to determine what the true timeline would look like. However, since the timeline exists as a single whole, what for that takes is basically author(or in this case, DM) fiat.

My point there was more along the lines "You can't assume he can stop the ascension of another pun pun". I think I did reason too strongly based on the rise of the anti pun pun, but you can't assume he doesn't exist.

[Mystify]

c) Of course he wouldn't be able to defend against it mechanically, which is what I assumed we were limiting ourselves to at the moment; but he should be able to act in a way that prevents others from deciding to rise against him in the first place, with some assumptions in place. As I mentioned, effectively, this would nullify the weakness altogether, but I do think it would be an interesting permutation if the reason why Pun-Pun lacked an effective weakness, despite actually possessing a mechanical one, is due to necessary fluff.

Anyway, yeah, as mentioned, there's probably a few reasons the first idea (destroy EVERYTHING!) wouldn't work, not just the grandfather paradox.

My last post just detailed why you can't assume pun pun is able to stop a possible opponent preemptively.

[gkathellar]

your edit is right. You need more rules to determine what the true timeline would look like. However, since the timeline exists as a single whole, what for that takes is basically author(or in this case, DM) fiat.

My point there was more along the lines "You can't assume he can stop the ascension of another pun pun". I think I did reason too strongly based on the rise of the anti pun pun, but you can't assume he doesn't exist.

You're absolutely correct ... on the other hand, when you get multiple competing omnipotent entities, we've passed the point that we can handle with conventional logic.

Luckily, we have game rules! If someone can put together a complete list of how many infinities and near infinities Pun-Pun applies to any given statistic, we can determine whether or not Pun-Pun can or cannot actually punch himself out.

[Ellrin]

My last post just detailed why you can't assume pun pun is able to stop a possible opponent preemptively.

It's not about stopping an individual opponent preemptively, it's about preventing anybody from ever deciding they had an issue with Pun-Pun, by discovering and acting in a manner that would prevent that. It's sort of like turning the world into vegetarians by convincing everybody that meat is inedible, except it would likely have to be less direct--hence, the "removing himself from the equation" assumption.

...no meat? Gah! That sounds awful! Why would I even posit something like that? Ew, ew, ew, ew.

[Mystify]

It's not about stopping an individual opponent preemptively, it's about preventing anybody from ever deciding they had an issue with Pun-Pun, by discovering and acting in a manner that would prevent that. It's sort of like turning the world into vegetarians by convincing everybody that meat is inedible, except it would likely have to be less direct--hence, the "removing himself from the equation" assumption.

...no meat? Gah! That sounds awful! Why would I even posit something like that? Ew, ew, ew, ew.

Whats the point of being omnipotent if you can't do anything without creative your opponent? Pun pun has defeated himself at that point, since he is not longer utilizing his abilities as pun pun, and hence they are irrelevant.

[gkathellar]

It's not about stopping an individual opponent preemptively, it's about preventing anybody from ever deciding they had an issue with Pun-Pun, by discovering and acting in a manner that would prevent that. It's sort of like turning the world into vegetarians by convincing everybody that meat is inedible, except it would likely have to be less direct--hence, the "removing himself from the equation" assumption.

...no meat? Gah! That sounds awful! Why would I even posit something like that? Ew, ew, ew, ew.

You've got one part of it. The issue Mystify is raising is that any other Pun Pun might be able to prevent all attempts to deny its own existence. We would be dealing with a stable time loop.

In other words: say we have Pun-Pun A (PPA), and Pun-Lite (PL), who is attempting to become Pun-Pun B (PPB).


PPA, through its omniscience, notices PL's efforts. It moves to interfere.
It is prevented from interfering by PPB. PL becomes PPB.
PPB then travels back in time to prevent PPA from preventing PL from becoming PPB.
Which in turn, results in PPA noticing PL is going to make a successful attempt in the first place.
Which results in PPB traveling back to interfere with that interference.
Which results in PL succeeding.
Etc.

[Mystify]

You've got one part of it. The issue Mystify is raising is that any other Pun Pun might be able to prevent all attempts to deny its own existence. We would be dealing with a stable time loop.

In other words: say we have Pun-Pun A (PPA), and Pun-Lite (PL), who is attempting to become Pun-Pun B (PPB).


PPA, through its omniscience, notices PL's efforts. It moves to interfere.
It is prevented from interfering by PPB. PL becomes PPB.
PPB then travels back in time to prevent PPA from preventing PL from becoming PPB.
Which in turn, results in PPA noticing PL is going to make a successful attempt in the first place.
Which results in PPB traveling back to interfere with that interference.
Which results in PL succeeding.
Etc.


Yep, you understand it.

[gkathellar]

Yep, you understand it.

I enrolled in a training course on Paradox-space with the Hussmaster.

The tricky thing about stable time loops is that they either are or they aren't, and there's no "justification" for them beyond the very simplest, least intuitive kind of causality. You can posit a theoretical universe in which there's one, or two, or many Pun Puns — and that number of Pun Puns is as much a fact and a necessity as it is a result of events leading to one another. It's the model of a Spinozan universe, except that time travel is far more crucial than actual omnipotence.

[Mystify]

I enrolled in a training course on Paradox-space with the Hussmaster.

The tricky thing about stable time loops is that they either are or they aren't, and there's no "justification" for them beyond the very simplest, least intuitive kind of causality. You can posit a theoretical universe in which there's one, or two, or many Pun Puns — and that number of Pun Puns is as much a fact and a necessity as it is a result of events leading to one another. It's the model of a Spinozan universe, except that time travel is far more crucial than actual omnipotence.
That is the problem with a static timeline. While the ontological paradox is supported, its hard to justify it existing in the first place. I prefer a branching and merging timeline. This creates a much more complex structure to the universe, and can create subsections that are stable, and internally appear to be a stable, unalterable timeline, complete with ontological paradoxes. If you are internal to such a structure, then you can't tell the overall structure of the universe, but the existence of the paradoxes does make sense from the larger perspective.

[Eisenfavl]

Pun-Pun has Aleph One attributes. Ergo, he has Aleph One turn attempts.
Using Divine Impetus from RKV, he has Aleph Zero swift actions.
He has Aleph One attributes, and therefore Aleph One spell slots.
Ergo, he can has Greater Celerity Aleph Zero times.
Ergo, he has Aleph Zero full actions.
He has NI reach due to Umbral Disciple's Kiss of the Shadows(Su) + NI Essentia.



Also, the PPB theory doesn't work. Pun-Pun has Aleph Zero divine rank, and all portfolio's, in addition to infinite knowledge checks.
Ergo, he knows everything, at any point in time.

[gkathellar]

Also, the PPB theory doesn't work. Pun-Pun has Aleph Zero divine rank, and all portfolio's, in addition to infinite knowledge checks.
Ergo, he knows everything, at any point in time.

So he likewise knows that PPB will interfere with any attempt to stop PL from becoming PPB. That means either he won't interfere because he knows it would be futile or he will and he'll have to fight PPB. The only way to disprove the possibility is to disprove the possibility that PPB could protect PL during the ascension. Otherwise, it's a self-justifying paradox: PPA will attempt and fail to prevent PL's ascension to become PPB because PL saw PPB enable his ascension, and went back in time as PPB to do exactly that. In this case, the cause and the effect are the same thing.

It's not a question of foreknowledge — look, think of Doctor Manhattan. He can do just about anything, but he knows beforehand that he won't. He's still choosing his actions based on the information available to him like anyone else, but that information includes what choices he'll make based on the information available to him including what choices he'll make. It's a roughly identical scenario: if PPB is capable of ensuring his own successful ascension, than he successfully ascends because he ensures it.

So the only question is: can PPB, within the bounds of RAW, protect PL from PPA? Do Pun Pun's infinite defensive abilities constitute a larger infinity than his infinite offensive ones? If no, then there can't be a stable time loop. If yes, then there can.

[Fable Wright]

Pun-Pun has Aleph One attributes. Ergo, he has Aleph One turn attempts.
Using Divine Impetus from RKV, he has Aleph Zero swift actions.
He has Aleph One attributes, and therefore Aleph One spell slots.
Ergo, he can has Greater Celerity Aleph Zero times.
Ergo, he has Aleph Zero full actions.
He has NI reach due to Umbral Disciple's Kiss of the Shadows(Su) + NI Essentia.



Also, the PPB theory doesn't work. Pun-Pun has Aleph Zero divine rank, and all portfolio's, in addition to infinite knowledge checks.
Ergo, he knows everything, at any point in time.
The problem with that is, he doesn't. He has arbitrarily high attributes; he did not actually set up a means by which he has an actually infinite number for each of his stats, he just raises them whenever he feels like it. He does not have infinite turn attempts, he has an arbitrarily high number of them. He does not have infinite knowledge checks unless he does the omnifiscer trick; until that point, there are a few facts that may remain unknown to him.

[Mystify]

The problem with that is, he doesn't. He has arbitrarily high attributes; he did not actually set up a means by which he has an actually infinite number for each of his stats, he just raises them whenever he feels like it. He does not have infinite turn attempts, he has an arbitrarily high number of them. He does not have infinite knowledge checks unless he does the omnifiscer trick; until that point, there are a few facts that may remain unknown to him.
From what I read, he uses the omnifiscer trick to get infinite stats, then uses alter reality to make them permament.

[tyckspoon]

The problem with that is, he doesn't. He has arbitrarily high attributes; he did not actually set up a means by which he has an actually infinite number for each of his stats, he just raises them whenever he feels like it. He does not have infinite turn attempts, he has an arbitrarily high number of them. He does not have infinite knowledge checks unless he does the omnifiscer trick; until that point, there are a few facts that may remain unknown to him.

Omniscifer trick is assumed, it's pretty much how he gets truly infinite anything. Omniscifer also gives him infinite attack bonus and saves as part of the spell it keys on. Since it involved dealing infinite damage to himself, all you need for infinite attributes is a means of converting damage to ability bonuses. Savage Species has a feat that does this for Strength, so that's infinite... the thread somebody posted earlier claims that the Bellflower Tattoo is then used to transfer that effect to all the other attributes, but that doesn't work- the Bellflower ability is specifically to add Charisma to another attribute.

So, we need an ability that either lets you an add an arbitrary ability modifier to any other ability, or one that lets you swap ability modifiers (Pun Pun's strength will be instantly returning to infinite thanks to the infinite damage loop, so it doesn't matter if we reduce it temporarily.) And.. there is one: the Void Disciple, a bizarre and mostly overlooked prestige class in Complete Divine, has an ability that lets you temporarily use your highest ability modifier in place of any lower modifier. So Pun-Pun may now use his truly infinite Strength bonus in place of any of his non-infinite scores. Finally, the Salient Divine Ability Alter Reality can make any Supernatural effect permanent, which locks it in.

[Fable Wright]

From what I read, he uses the omnifiscer trick to get infinite stats, then uses alter reality to make them permament.

Omnifiscer doesn't have infinite stats. It has infinite bonuses on every check, but it doesn't have an infinite bonus on every stat.

Tyckspoon- What was the name of the Savage Species feat?

[NNescio]

Omniscifer trick is assumed, it's pretty much how he gets truly infinite anything. Omniscifer also gives him infinite attack bonus and saves as part of the spell it keys on. Since it involved dealing infinite damage to himself, all you need for infinite attributes is a means of converting damage to ability bonuses. Savage Species has a feat that does this for Strength, so that's infinite... the thread somebody posted earlier claims that the Bellflower Tattoo is then used to transfer that effect to all the other attributes, but that doesn't work- the Bellflower ability is specifically to add Charisma to another attribute.

So, we need an ability that either lets you an add an arbitrary ability modifier to any other ability, or one that lets you swap ability modifiers (Pun Pun's strength will be instantly returning to infinite thanks to the infinite damage loop, so it doesn't matter if we reduce it temporarily.) And.. there is one: the Void Disciple, a bizarre and mostly overlooked prestige class in Complete Divine, has an ability that lets you temporarily use your highest ability modifier in place of any lower modifier. So Pun-Pun may now use his truly infinite Strength bonus in place of any of his non-infinite scores. Finally, the Salient Divine Ability Alter Reality can make any Supernatural effect permanent, which locks it in.

http://ompldr.org/vOTdhaA/81560-186971-superboy-prime_super.png

[tyckspoon]

Omnifiscer doesn't have infinite stats. It has infinite bonuses on every check, but it doesn't have an infinite bonus on every stat.

Tyckspoon- What was the name of the Savage Species feat?

Pain Mastery. +2 Strength/50 damage you suffer. Which is obviously completely useless to anything that can't survive infinite damage, because you'll be dead long before you get any useful amount of bonus from it otherwise.

[Talionis]

If you are a DM. Never invite Pun Pun into your game. If you do it will cause you nothing but trouble. However, I will say this.

1. All the forces of the DnD Universe ought to unite to stop someone from becoming Pun Pun. They have very signficant abilities especialy in Divination and mostly they should be in trouble.

2. How does your Pun Pun know he is the first Pun Pun? If someone else before him became Pun Pun and used his powers to make you think you became Pun Pun, still reserving Trump powers. I mean there is an awful lot of ways to make someone think they became Pun Pun when they really didn't. Surprise suprise the Pun Pun wakes up from his dream of becoming Pun Pun only to find out he's just a commoner. The real Pun Pun can be cruel.

[Myth]

Based on my research and the 30 page thread where I argued that PP is RAW illegal (to which a great many posters said "It's an old build and TO-ers greater than yourself tried to disprove it and failed, so give up" - which I do NOT accept as an argument):

- In order for Pun-Pun to work some things must exist in the setting. These are magic, deities, Sarrrukhs. So we can logically assume that Pun Pun cannot legally ascend with the birth of the universe whenever the very first Kobold hatched.

1. If the gods exist (and we are talking about FR since Sarukhs are setting specific), Ao exists. Ergo, Ao stomps him (this is called DM fiat. As always, the DM always wins if he wants to)

2. Assuming Ao is too vague and DM dependent, any Greter Deity able to spy him out with his Portfolio Sense will end him (Absolutely RAW legal)

3. Assuming that is somehow invalid (which it isn't), Ice Assassin can't replicate Deities. Why? Because if it could, the violent FR pantheon would have used Ice Assassins to kill one another long before that slimy Kibold was even conceived. Since they didn't, we can assume logically that Ice Assassin is incapable of copying a Deity or at most, it just copies a 20 HD Outsider with some immunities since in the Forgotten Realms the deities are dependent on worship and lose their portfolio powers and Salient Divine Abilites if they lose their worshipers, and Pun Pun doesn't have worshipers nor can he get any without triggering scenario 2.

4. Assuming that somehow Ice Assassin can actually get a god's SDAs it cannot use the proxy trick to get more than one divine rank. Why? Because if PP gives his one divine rank to the Squirel the build assumes that PP reverts to a DR0 quasi-deity, but this is not RAW legal. The proxy is a creature. While given the 1 DR by it's deity (of which they must be absolutely of the same alignment mind you) it gains the powers of a DR1 demigod. By logic, if it loses it's powers it does not become a permanent DR0 quasi-deity that is choke-full of immunites etc. It reverts to it's original form

So when PP gives away his DR1 to a squirrel he reverts back to his plain mortal self and thus loses the ability to recall that DR later on.


And one divine rank won't cut it since Greater Deities with Supreme Initiative will still stomp his arse hard. Especially with Epic magic which they have more of. Always. Since they have hundreds of thousands of spellcasting followers who can donate slots for research and casting and near infinite resources overall and they have had the time to develop since they always come first.

Supreme Initative + Salient Life & Death still kills Pun-Pun pre-divine ranks. If SDA doesn't, Epic spells do.

[gkathellar]

1. If the gods exist (and we are talking about FR since Sarukhs are setting specific), Ao exists. Ergo, Ao stomps him (this is called DM fiat. As always, the DM always wins if he wants to)

2. Assuming Ao is too vague and DM dependent, any Greter Deity able to spy him out with his Portfolio Sense will end him (Absolutely RAW legal)

Unless this isn't actually DM fiat, post-ascension Pun-Pun can prevent any attempt to stop his ascension using time travel. Deterministic timelines are deterministic.


3. Assuming that is somehow invalid (which it isn't), Ice Assassin can't replicate Deities. Why? Because if it could, the violent FR pantheon would have used Ice Assassins to kill one another long before that slimy Kibold was even conceived.

This is logical, but not RAW. It's just like how logically, most of a campaign world's population should've been wiped out by allips eons ago.


4. Assuming that somehow Ice Assassin can actually get a god's SDAs it cannot use the proxy trick to get more than one divine rank. Why? Because if PP gives his one divine rank to the Squirel the build assumes that PP reverts to a DR0 quasi-deity, but this is not RAW legal.

Questionable, and based on an ambiguous assertion about the way Divine Ranks work.

[JackRackham]

So he likewise knows that PPB will interfere with any attempt to stop PL from becoming PPB. That means either he won't interfere because he knows it would be futile or he will and he'll have to fight PPB. The only way to disprove the possibility is to disprove the possibility that PPB could protect PL during the ascension. Otherwise, it's a self-justifying paradox: PPA will attempt and fail to prevent PL's ascension to become PPB because PL saw PPB enable his ascension, and went back in time as PPB to do exactly that. In this case, the cause and the effect are the same thing.

Except that, if PPA came first, PPL would NEVER be allowed to become PPB, so there'd be no PPB to prevent PPA from stopping PPL. The ONLY way your idea works is if one assumes there is a way to resist/defeat Pun-Pun with not-Pun-Pun, ascribe to the many-worlds theory, and apply it to D&D, in which case there are so many Pun-Puns it's silly (since the odds are that every Kobold is a Pun-Pun in some reality or another).

[Mystify]

Except that, if PPA came first, PPL would NEVER be allowed to become PPB, so there'd be no PPB to prevent PPA from stopping PPL. The ONLY way your idea works is if one assumes there is a way to resist/defeat Pun-Pun with not-Pun-Pun, ascribe to the many-worlds theory, and apply it to D&D, in which case there are so many Pun-Puns it's silly (since the odds are that every Kobold is a Pun-Pun in some reality or another).
The multiple worlds theory is actually the one least likely to allow PPB to arise, since the first case of PPB will be stopped. In a statictimeline, cause and effect to not have to proceed normally. Hence, Saying PPL will never become PPB is not a safe statement, as the non linear causality allows PPB to save PPL.

[gkathellar]

JackRackham, you're still not thinking like a time traveller. Things only have to progress linearly from your own perspective — from the perspective of the universe, your trip back in time to protect yourself already happened, and all you need to do is go back and make sure it happens as you remember it at some point. The event causes itself.

[Haron]

Couldn't the first PunPun just wipe out all of the Sarrukhs in existence and make sure there will never be another Sarrukh from that point on? Wouldn't that prevent any other PunPun from rising, thus ensuring that he never can be challenged?

[Talionis]

Here is the question... How do you know you are the first Pun Pun? Because I pretty much agree that the first Pun Pun can keep any more Pun Pun's from being formed. I think anyone wanting power that badly would stop anyone else from becoming a Pun Pun. But the first Pun Pun is also powerful enough to make other people think they have become Pun Pun and reveil they haven't at some really in opportune time just for fun. So you think you are Pun Pun A. You are actually Pun Pun B and you wake up one day without any powers in the body of a 90 year old man without any powers...

[Telonius]

Meta-theory, building off my earlier (possible) solution ...

PPA knows that any being ascending to Pun-Pun-hood would eventually grant himself an arbitrarily high amount of Wisdom. At some point on the Wisdom scale, the folly of fighting over a world that exists only in the imagination of the DM and players, would become apparent to PPB. At Wisdom X, PPA and PPB would both work together for the good of the game. There might be an entire consortium of Pun-Puns who have ascended at various points. The only real constraint on their number would be making sure that the disappearance of various characters in the gameworld doesn't break the suspension of disbelief.

[kardar233]

This (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=2705.0) might be helpful for the discussion.

The list details Pun-Pun's various infinities, nigh-infinities, utterly ridiculous abilities and other interesting traits.

Thanks a ton for that link, it's super helpful.

I don't see any Aleph-1 infinities there, and D&D is so granularized that it's unlikely that there actually are any.

[Radar]

Thanks a ton for that link, it's super helpful.

I don't see any Aleph-1 infinities there, and D&D is so granularized that it's unlikely that there actually are any.
There might be a way to achieve Aleph-1, since Aleph-1=2^Aleph-0 (or at the very least it's significantly more then Aleph-0 - let's not go into set theory). First method I know of involves abuse of Arcane Fusion to the point of puting Twined Arcane Fusion inside through Sanctum Spell and metamagic reducers (alternatively you can probably twink out a Shadowcraft Mage enough to put Twined Shadow Miracles into your Arcane Fusion - rest goes the same). The second is probabilistic, since it relies on Lightning Maces and other shenanigans to produce multiple attacks on every critical hit (there was one Test of Spite character, who used this trick).

[Karoht]

A faster Kobold/thread.

More seriously Pun-pun has all the power he needs or want, so once he has ascended it is unstoppable.
Just because he has every ability in the game doesn't mean the player knows how to utilize it. There has to be some line of testing a DM can throw at a Pun-Pun player post ascention to figure out where they are weak, and then outsmart them/outplay them in this area.

[Radar]

Just because he has every ability in the game doesn't mean the player knows how to utilize it. There has to be some line of testing a DM can throw at a Pun-Pun player post ascention to figure out where they are weak, and then outsmart them/outplay them in this area.
Player's ability to play a character has nothing to do with strenght or weakness of the character. Since "Player/DM will make a mistake" is an answer to any "defeat X" problem, it's not a valid solution.

[gkathellar]

Meta-theory, building off my earlier (possible) solution ...

PPA knows that any being ascending to Pun-Pun-hood would eventually grant himself an arbitrarily high amount of Wisdom. At some point on the Wisdom scale, the folly of fighting over a world that exists only in the imagination of the DM and players, would become apparent to PPB. At Wisdom X, PPA and PPB would both work together for the good of the game. There might be an entire consortium of Pun-Puns who have ascended at various points. The only real constraint on their number would be making sure that the disappearance of various characters in the gameworld doesn't break the suspension of disbelief.

Except Wisdom doesn't equal benevolence, enlightenment or even necessarily sanity. It's like that old comment Gabrowski made about Elders in Exalted: (paraphrasing) "godlike competence doesn't mean you'll take the correct course of action, it just means that you'll take the incorrect course of action really competently."

[kardar233]

There might be a way to achieve Aleph-1, since Aleph-1=2^Aleph-0 (or at the very least it's significantly more then Aleph-0 - let's not go into set theory). First method I know of involves abuse of Arcane Fusion to the point of puting Twined Arcane Fusion inside through Sanctum Spell and metamagic reducers (alternatively you can probably twink out a Shadowcraft Mage enough to put Twined Shadow Miracles into your Arcane Fusion - rest goes the same). The second is probabilistic, since it relies on Lightning Maces and other shenanigans to produce multiple attacks on every critical hit (there was one Test of Spite character, who used this trick).

Don't think you're quite grasping the essence of a higher Aleph here. You can put Aleph-Zero to the power of Aleph-Zero, and it's still in the realm of Aleph-Zero. Anything measured as the set of Natural Numbers (1, 2, 3....) is part of Aleph-Zero. I don't think there's any non-Natural numbers in D&D due to the granularization and rounding that it uses.

Ye'd best start believing in set theory, lad. You're in-finities!

[Bakkan]

Don't think you're quite grasping the essence of a higher Aleph here. You can put Aleph-Zero to the power of Aleph-Zero, and it's still in the realm of Aleph-Zero. Anything measured as the set of Natural Numbers (1, 2, 3....) is part of Aleph-Zero. I don't think there's any non-Natural numbers in D&D due to the granularization and rounding that it uses.

Ye'd best start believing in set theory, lad. You're in-finities!

Sorry, but that's not quite true. 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught power is equal to the size of the power set of the natural numbers (that is, the set of all subsets of the natural numbers). By a beautiful theorem by Cantor, the power set is always strictly greater in cardinality (size) than the original set. In fact, 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught is "c", the size of the continuum (real numbers). Aleph-One is defined to be the next largest cardinal number after Aleph-Naught. Whether 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught power is equal to Aleph-One is known as the Continuum Hypothesis, and is in fact both unprovable and undisprovable in our standard mathematics.

In short, if Pun-Pun has a power that, e.g., says that "for every point of Strength modifier you have, double your damage," this will give rise to an amount of damage that is at least Aleph-One, and is strictly larger than Aleph-Naught.

[kardar233]

Sorry, but that's not quite true. 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught power is equal to the size of the power set of the natural numbers (that is, the set of all subsets of the natural numbers). By a beautiful theorem by Cantor, the power set is always strictly greater in cardinality (size) than the original set. In fact, 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught is "c", the size of the continuum (real numbers). Aleph-One is defined to be the next largest cardinal number after Aleph-Naught. Whether 2 raised to the Aleph-Naught power is equal to Aleph-One is known as the Continuum Hypothesis, and is in fact both unprovable and undisprovable in our standard mathematics.

In short, if Pun-Pun has a power that, e.g., says that "for every point of Strength modifier you have, double your damage," this will give rise to an amount of damage that is at least Aleph-One, and is strictly larger than Aleph-Naught.

I see where you're going here, though I'd be interested to see Cantor's proof; do you know the name?

By definition, Aleph-One is the next highest infinite cardinal number after Aleph-Zero, but your application in this case seems to run counter to the (from what I've experienced) common assertion that Aleph-One is the set of all real numbers (as Cantor proves it's larger than -Zero in the Diagonal Argument). If 2^Aleph-Zero is an infinity greater than Aleph-Zero, it must be at least Aleph-One, but I can't see an interpretation of their relationship that has 2^Aleph-Zero being even equal to the set of all real numbers, much less greater.

Even so, I don't think there are any exponents in 3.5 except for Magic Item Pricing costs.

[Radar]

I see where you're going here, though I'd be interested to see Cantor's proof; do you know the name?

By definition, Aleph-One is the next highest infinite cardinal number after Aleph-Zero, but your application in this case seems to run counter to the (from what I've experienced) common assertion that Aleph-One is the set of all real numbers (as Cantor proves it's larger than -Zero in the Diagonal Argument). If 2^Aleph-Zero is an infinity greater than Aleph-Zero, it must be at least Aleph-One, but I can't see an interpretation of their relationship that has 2^Aleph-Zero being even equal to the set of all real numbers, much less greater.

Even so, I don't think there are any exponents in 3.5 except for Magic Item Pricing costs.
2^Aleph-0 can't be greater then continuum. For our problem it is also irrelevant, whether it is equal or not.
Anyway, think again about a situation with Arcane Fusion containing Twinned Arcane Fusion (and some 1st level spell like Shocking Grasp). Each step deeper into the loop effectively doubles the number of spells cast. Let's try enumerating them:
1. If we start from a Twinned Arcane Fusion, then let's call one of them 1 and the other 0.
2. On the next iteration we have four new Arcane Fusions (two from 1 and two from 0), we call them accordingly 10,11,01,00.
3. On any step we name Arcane Fusions by adding a 0 or 1 to the name of it's predecessor.
4. By taking the limit we get an infinite set of infinite binary chains, which by Cantor's Diagonal Argument is of higher cardinality then Aleph-0. This means, our spell loop deals Aleph-1 electrical damage. For added practicality Shapechange into a Shambling Mound and use the loop on yourself.

[kardar233]

I'm feeling really slow right now :smalleek:, but how does the Diagonal Argument prove that an infinite set of infinite chains (in binary) is greater than Aleph-Zero? Aleph-Zero is essentially an infinite set of infinite chains of natural numbers, and as all numbers described by binary are in the set of natural numbers I'm having trouble seeing how you're getting anything except a subset of Aleph-Zero.

[Venser]

No, the onl way to do it is to ascend to a greater deity and use alter reality on pun-pun.

[Radar]

I'm feeling really slow right now :smalleek:, but how does the Diagonal Argument prove that an infinite set of infinite chains (in binary) is greater than Aleph-Zero? Aleph-Zero is essentially an infinite set of infinite chains of natural numbers, and as all numbers described by binary are in the set of natural numbers I'm having trouble seeing how you're getting anything except a subset of Aleph-Zero.
You can look at it from a few sides:
1. Diagonal Argument proves, that an infinite set of infinite chains is uncountable and thus it's cardinality is higher then that of natural numbers (you can inject natural numbers into the set of chains, but you can't do it the other way around).
2. Natural numbers can be seen as a set of finite binary chains - there is no natural number, that has an infinite binary representation. It is qualitatively different from a set of all infinite binary chains. This in itself is not a proof, but it should make it easier to percieve the difference.
We could procede from that, with changing the chains into fractions on the segment [0,1]: 0.101 instead of 101 (in binary obviously). From here we can use Cauchy chains's method of constructing real numbers which can be represented as a set of infinite chains (change 0.0011101... back into 0011101...).

Also: Aleph-0 is a number - not a set.

[Myth]

Since this was pretty much derailed I'm going to use this spot to declare that I do indeed love pancakes.

[sonofzeal]

If 2^(Aleph-null) = Aleph-one, then Pun-Pun's carrying capacity is Aleph-one, since it goes up by factors of 2 after certain intervals and we have Aleph-null of those intervals. This would be more useful if he could actually find an object of Aleph-one weight to throw via Hulking Hurler, but that might be harder.....

[Bakkan]

I see where you're going here, though I'd be interested to see Cantor's proof; do you know the name?

By definition, Aleph-One is the next highest infinite cardinal number after Aleph-Zero, but your application in this case seems to run counter to the (from what I've experienced) common assertion that Aleph-One is the set of all real numbers (as Cantor proves it's larger than -Zero in the Diagonal Argument). If 2^Aleph-Zero is an infinity greater than Aleph-Zero, it must be at least Aleph-One, but I can't see an interpretation of their relationship that has 2^Aleph-Zero being even equal to the set of all real numbers, much less greater.

Even so, I don't think there are any exponents in 3.5 except for Magic Item Pricing costs.

As I said, whether Aleph-One = size of continuum is neither provable nor disprovable, however it is common in mathematics to assume that such is the case (though in my experience it rarely comes up). It is provable (using Radar's method) that 2^Aleph-Naught is the size of the coninuum.

As far as Cantor's proof goes, I don't know the name but I can give it to you here.

Let S be a set. Let P(S) be the power set of S. Now P(S) is at least as big as S, since for every element x of S we have an associated subset {x} in P(S). Assume that S and P(S) are the same size. Then by definition, there is a bijection f from S to P(S). Let T be the set of all elements x in S such that x is not a member of f(x). Since f is a bijection, there exists t in S such that f(t)=T. If t is in T, then it is not the case that t is not a member of f(t), so t is not in T, a contradiction. If t is not in T, then it is the case that t is not a member of f(t), so t is in T, a contradiction. So any case leads to a contradiction. So our assumption that there exists a bijection f must be false. So S cannot be the same size as P(S). Therefore P(S) must be larger than S.