Can a highly optimized level 21 character defeat any published entity?

[noradetzky]

To repeat the question: can a highly optimized level 21 character defeat any published entity? Assumptions: every officially published material exists concurrently within the larger cosmology of Planescape; and the game is run by a sane DM for players with wildly divergent backgrounds in tabletop gaming.

Presumably Dal'Quori planar shepherds are out of the question for what the DM can throw at you. On the other hand, this isn't an E6 low-magic "psionics OP" game. So he doesn't think that throwing 50 level 3 bears is enough to take down a level 8 wizard.

I'm obviously suggesting that epic spellcasting is powerful badly written enough such that a very well-built wizard21 will dominate; however, let's say we have a short-sighted but fundamentally sane DM. None of that manipulate form or chain-gate-ing or unrestricted ice assassin for you! On the other hand, anything that doesn't approach medium levels of cheese will probably be permitted. For instance, divine minion into master of many forms.

Also, the DM is shortsighted enough that he might not notice you building a character who can outmatch medium-TO deity20's.

My question is, can someone well-optimized under these limitations be built to face ANY challenge? What build is this? I realize wizard21 with smart feats and good epic spells is an obvious choice, but how about those epic wizards who have a crunch advantage on you? Or deities with instakill abilities?

[Elric VIII]

Nope. (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Neutronium_Golem_(3.5e_Monster)) The forum does not allow cheeky, one-word answers.

[Varil]

Oh man, be careful with your declarations. I remember a topic about sub-epic wizards taking down that thing. Granted, given the 'no super-shenanigans' rule it'd be harder, but I bet someone can find something to beat the Neutronium golem using epic magic.

[Gavinfoxx]

Uh, Neutronium Golem, from the Book of Monkeys With Typewriters Making Things With Big Numbers (a 3rd party book, btw... never use dandwiki as a source, it has a staggering amount of stuff that was published elsewhere without actually saying so, or ideas cribbed from other things without providing the link to it... hate hate HATE the Immortals Handbook, where it originally came from!) is surprisingly easy to defeat. I think it can be done with a level 18 Wizard...

[Elric VIII]

Oh man, be careful with your declarations. I remember a topic about sub-epic wizards taking down that thing. Granted, given the 'no super-shenanigans' rule it'd be harder, but I bet someone can find something to beat the Neutronium golem using epic magic.

Oh, yeah, I'm just being facetious. You can take that thing down with something as simple as a Hulking Hurler.

Or an Incantatrix with UPD and Timeless Body (assuming you have enough spell slots to hurl piles of mundane things at it).

The thing is, 3.5 is a very open-ended system (in terms of character creation), therefore it is fraught with shenanigans of varying degrees. So the answer really depends on where you draw your line when defining shenanigans.

[Benly]

How far are we stretching "any published entity"? Because Deities & Demigods offers some pretty tough takedowns, especially if we're limited to the epic spells a level 21 character could afford. Boccob sensing any kind of magic use 17 weeks before it happens makes him a pretty tough nut to crack, for example. (Especially since he also senses any kind of magic development 17 weeks before it happens, so you're not likely to get away with researching your "Slay Boccob" epic spell.)

[Answerer]

Strictly speaking, the answer is yes.

In fact, a level 1 character can.

Because Pun-Pun can be done at level 1.

The trivial solution aside... is the level 21 character allowed to be tailor-made for each specific threat, or does it have to be one level 21 character who can handle any of them? I'm 99% sure it's possible, just curious of the parameters here.

[noradetzky]

So the answer really depends on where you draw your line when defining shenanigans.

Precisely why I specified "sane" DM. Now, of course, we all have varying degrees of acceptable sane-ness for DM's, and frankly, I don't think it's possible to explain my personal concept of what defines sane and not sane. When we deal with subjects like these, it's mostly heuristic.

That said, we all have a general idea of what sane is, and I gave an upper bound. Divine minion into MoMF is allowed; unrestricted (read: unrestricted) ice assassin ain't. This should help tailor our understanding of the shenanigans involved.

I think we're mature enough not to argue over minor issues, and to resolve them speedily. (I'm technically the DM in question, so I guess the best resolution would be for me to say whether I'd allow it; but I'll try to be impartial since it's important that a DM leaves as much as possible for rules to determine.)

edit

Also, I'm thinking that a single character build to handle any challenge that can be thrown at you. Un mano y mano Boccob? Sure. Emulate a fighter30 for a competition? Sure. Bake the best cookie ever known to the universe? ...Go ahead.

If level 21 doesn't work, I'd prefer we work to see the minimum level required to do these things, rather than retailoring our expectations.

moar edit

Presumably, since I set the stage as all official published material existing concurrently in the greater cosmology of Planescape, it's not unreasonable to assume there's a spot that Boccob cannot sense somewhere in that universe. Sigil, maybe; or Union.

[Myth]

First, you must define your rules on the most common exploits. I consider myself a sane DM and I propose:

- No thought bottle abuse
- No infinite loops
- No wish abuse or infinite loops
- Epic spells can only be cast and developed by RAI means. Puming out a Spellcraft check to 300 is asbolutely possible, RAW and RAI. Chaingating is strictly RAW and not RAI, and it's like using a fans to power wind generators.
- No chaos shuffling racial feats and in general, not doing the chaos shuffle dance more than once without severe consequences.
- No CL abuse via circle magic
- Ice Assassin can't steal Divine Ranks
- Ice Assassin can't copy statless beings (Ao, Io, Lady of Pain)

Also, a sane DM has to run his deities smartly. Such as:

- Using Alter Reality to have every spell in the game permanent on their persons.
- Creating custom Artefact class items (because they can)
- Having Epic spells on a magnitude no mortal can achieve. Because they have infinite wealth legitimitely (and not by selling their Walls of Iron or other such stupidity) and have cults that number in the millions, with clerics and other casters there ready to sacrifice spell slots for epic spell development.

So a level 21 Wizard/Dweomerkeeper for example can sure as hell fire off a nasty Su Orb of Fire that harms even fire immune creatures. But beating Supreme Initative and Portfolio Sense... Nope. Not under a sane DM i would say.

[Flickerdart]

Chaingating is strictly RAW and not RAI, and it's like using a fans to power wind generators.
There's nothing in the rules to even imply that chaingating isn't RAI. It's just something the developers hadn't thought of. You might as well say that a God wizard or Clericzilla isn't RAI.

[Myth]

Epic spells are supposed to cost a lot and be hard to develop. Blackstaff and several Sun Elven High Mages sacrificed their lives permanently to cast Mythals that have a DC of 280-320.

A level 21 Joe-Schmoe who just spams gate to chaingate Solars to get NI spell slots sacrficied is NOT rules as intended.

Not to mention that Solars are divine servants and in a game that is ran by a DM and that follows the logic of the cosmology, these gods will come-a-lookin' when some of their most powerful servants start poofing out of their divine realms.

There are legitimate ways to boost spellcraft to such levels. See more here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=184336).

Also, yes - RAI Wizards are blasters and Clerics are healbots, and the party damage dealer is Tordek the Fighter.

[Answerer]

Arguing that your own personal interpretation is RAI is vaguely insulting, methinks.

Back up your opinions with evidence and reasoning, not vague and inaccurate Appeals to Authority.

[Myth]

I am referencing published 3.5 material and FR books and lore. Who am I insulting? Got any arguments that it's RAI for a level 21 caster to abuse Gate and Solars so they get free Epic spells, or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

[Shadowleaf]

I am referencing published 3.5 material and FR books and lore. Who am I insulting? Got any arguments that it's RAI for a level 21 caster to abuse Gate and Solars so they get free Epic spells, or are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?Fluff and Rules as Intended isn't the same. Gate was intended to be used to gate in things - including Solars.

[Myth]

Of course. But the chain-gating trick? Solars using their own Gate spell to Gate in more Solars, who Gate in more Solars, so on and so forth...

Is this not an infinite loop? How is a level 9 spell meant to recast itself perpetually because it can summon a monster which can cast that same spell?

I think you guys are trolling me or you really don't understand the subject.

[Answerer]

Who am I insulting?
When you say "I am right because it's intended" you're nullifying the validity of anyone else's contribution. Their intent is largely unknown and largely irrelevant in any case. So people just use RAI as a crutch when they don't feel like actually defending their positions. And as someone interested in debating things, yes, I find that somewhat insulting. If I'm taking the time to discuss something, I'd think it courteous of others to not waste my time with obvious logical fallacies.

And, of course, it's not merely about my wasted time. I'm more reacting to the notion that it is effectively wasting the time of everyone who reads the thread.

We cannot debate their intent, because they haven't (in almost all cases) published any statements clarifying their intent. The only reasonable thing to do is assume they intended what they wrote – not because it's likely that they did, but because it's meaningless to start guessing what they did and did not intend. Again, in the end, 90% of the time people start talking about RAI, they're just using it to unfairly prop up their own perspectives.

[Myth]

I see your point. Well see how WotC handled their Epic magic and Epic level NPCs. The aforementioned sacrifices to achieve the laying of a Mythal is pretty obvious that Epic magic and the cost to cast it is not indented to be taken lightly or outright removed by an infinite Gate exploit.

Every published reference to Epic casting and how Epic spells are developed and brought into play does not mention this exploit, which is available right at level 21 and basically makes Epic spells completely free. Who would take backlash damage or sacrifice themselves if chain-Gating is all that is ever needed?

Read the entry on Solars. They are the servants of good aligned gods. Angels, to put it simple. They are very powerful (and under-CRed) and in a universe ran like it's supposed to, the gods will take notice if Epic level creatures in their service start disappearing. Or is that too some sort of logical fallacy?

I'm looking at this from the point of a DM who goes by the lore of the setting he is playing in, this is my interpretation of RAI.

[Aharon]

It's just sloppy reading/lack of completeness of the SRD. The Epic Level Handbook explicitly states that Epic Spell Development requires DM adjudication, this note isn't included in the SRD.

Because many people use it for ease of reference, the notion that epic magic is totally broken was propagated. In reality, it's as broken or non-broken as the DM allows.

@Chain-Gating
In a universe where PCs are intelligent enough to chain-gate, the NPCs should be smart enough to use dimensional lock.

[Alefiend]

Strict reading and application of the entry for Solars will negate the chain-gate exploit anyway:


According to the SRD, Gate is neither a spell-like ability for them, nor is it typically a spell they prepare.
Casting a Gate spell to get a type of creature doesn't say anything about specifying its power. Have it open in front of a 66HD Solar who tells the player to get stuffed.

[Emperor Tippy]

Sure, it takes hideous Illithid Savant abuse but yes; you can kill anything 3.5 has published stats for by ECL 21.

All it takes to be unkillable is to grab two copies of Singular Enemy; which can be done relatively easily.

Offense is much more difficult but it's still doable, just bribe level 1 casters or use Simulacrum for your mitigation spell slots. Using epic magic you can rip a deity from anywhere on any plane and drop him at the base of the Spire where you have prepared the battlefield to kill him. Pretty much everything else can also be defeated the same way.

[Jack_Simth]

It's just sloppy reading/lack of completeness of the SRD. The Epic Level Handbook explicitly states that Epic Spell Development requires DM adjudication, this note isn't included in the SRD.Is Too! (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/developingEpicSpells.htm#approval)
This is the final step, and it’s critically important. The epic spell development work and reasoning must be shown to the GM and receive his or her approval. If the GM doesn’t approve, then the epic spell cannot be developed. However, the GM should explain why the epic spell wasn’t approved and possibly offer suggestions on how to create an epic spell that will be acceptable. :tongue:
All it takes to be unkillable is to grab two copies of Singular Enemy; which can be done relatively easily.This is somewhat debatable, and would depend on the DM's adjudication. You might find that you've got two critters that can hurt you if you try this (and, of course, there's the question of 'OK, now how do I steal an ability from something that can't be affected by any of my attacks?').

Simpler to make sure that the intended victim doesn't actually exist - a Complete Divine Web Enhancement Dweomerkeeper Supernatural Spell (Caster level boosted(Miracle (or Supernatural Wish, you know, whichever))) for a Simulacrum of an Aleax of a creature that exists only in your imagination, and have it True Mind switch with you (it has to originate the True Mind Switch for this to work). You keep the Ex special quality of the body, and thus can't be harmed by an attack.

However, non-attack damaging effects can still get you. A natural avalanche, for instance. You need to be careful with such things.

[noradetzky]

Eww, Illithid savant. And by eww, I mean I'm going to read up on how to make an OP character. And then never play it.

[Benly]

A problem is that if we're talking about "any published entity" we have to include greater gods of magic who, if they're played smart, will have used Portfolio Sense followed by Remote Sensing to detect any epic spell being developed and any spell being cast on them a couple of months before it happens. (Bear in mind that Remote Sensing explicitly allows you to scry events detected by Portfolio Sense even if they don't otherwise meet the requirements for Remote Sensing, meaning that gods can and will have accurate and detailed information about what's going to happen several weeks from now if it's within their portfolio and the initial ping shows it as something of interest - such as, say, epic spell research or spells being cast on them personally.)

What this means is that any plan relying on being able to prepare your battlefield in advance is ineffective against such a deity, because by definition the fight's going to happen before you're ready for it unless the DM chooses to play a greater god of magic as being explicitly dumber about his defenses than our ultra-paranoid, ultra-prepared "god wizard".

[Soranar]

greater deities also have special (epic/divine) abilities that just trump whatever you could potentially come up with (even if you're Pun Pun)

Various gods of death , for example, have an instant death action which affects you immediately, offers no save and cannot be countered unless another divinity intervenes... Basically, unless you , somehow, gain a divine rank, you can't survive such an encounter.

And any way to gain a divine rank requires DM approval , meaning there is no RAW argument you could potentially pull to ''force" your DM (a DM is also the ultimate encounter as nothing can survive : rocks fall, everyone dies.)

[Namfuak]

We should probably avoid turning this into a God-killing thread, we already have one of those and from what I read pretty much established that whether or not it is possible depends on your interpretation of the God's powers, which means it is an argument that could go on forever.

IIRC, the highest challenge rating monster that is in the SRD is this:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Hecatoncheires

Presuming that we advanced it to the highest advancement, it would have 140 HD. Could a level 21 character defeat that?

[Talakeal]

greater deities also have special (epic/divine) abilities that just trump whatever you could potentially come up with (even if you're Pun Pun)

Various gods of death , for example, have an instant death action which affects you immediately, offers no save and cannot be countered unless another divinity intervenes... Basically, unless you , somehow, gain a divine rank, you can't survive such an encounter.

And any way to gain a divine rank requires DM approval , meaning there is no RAW argument you could potentially pull to ''force" your DM (a DM is also the ultimate encounter as nothing can survive : rocks fall, everyone dies.)

Doesn't normal death effect immunity protect you from Life and Death? Such as that granted by a death ward spell, soulfire armor, or the undead / construct type?

Also, I believe most people claim you can RAW your way into divine ranks by using something which can grant or copy "any" ability to include divine ranks, the specific permission granted by the "any" clause overwriting the generic rule that you need DM permission.

[Answerer]

greater deities also have special (epic/divine) abilities that just trump whatever you could potentially come up with (even if you're Pun Pun)
False, at least in the case of Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun literally has the ability to give himself any ability he can think of, which, when combined with arbitrarily high Int, Wis, and Cha scores, means that's just about anything ever. Plus, he can arguably do so retroactively if he chose to.

Pun-Pun is literally, by RAW, omnipotent, once he has finished his transcendence. Even if you have something that says "No, not even then," Pun-Pun can still say "except if you're me."

[Gavinfoxx]

The thing is, Hecatoncheires is supposedly not that hard to destroy? There are a few tricks that work well on it, right?

[deuxhero]

Lady of Pain>Epic Spellcasting.

[Answerer]

Lady of Pain>Epic Spellcasting.
Now, I think the Lady of Pain was exactly what the OP was trying to exclude by saying "published entity," but yes, of course, the Lady of Pain can overcome just about anything, since she is effectively outside the system. She's a part of the setting more than she is a character, and not only unstatted but inherently unstattable. She cannot be killed because then Planescape isn't Planescape anymore.

[Benly]

False, at least in the case of Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun literally has the ability to give himself any ability he can think of, which, when combined with arbitrarily high Int, Wis, and Cha scores, means that's just about anything ever. Plus, he can arguably do so retroactively if he chose to.

Pun-Pun is literally, by RAW, omnipotent, once he has finished his transcendence. Even if you have something that says "No, not even then," Pun-Pun can still say "except if you're me."

Clearly the reason Pun-Pun doesn't exist is because some god with a relevant portfolio notices each incoming ascension attempt the moment it starts and steps on the kobold who's going to try it before it can go off. Kurtulmak is the only thing standing between the multiverse and total Pun-Pun domination. :smallsmile:

[deuxhero]

She's a part of the setting more than she is a character, and not only unstatted but inherently unstattable. She cannot be killed because then Planescape isn't Planescape anymore.

Hmm, can Epic Spell casting create M. Night Shyamalan?


Clearly the reason Pun-Pun doesn't exist is because some god with a relevant portfolio notices each incoming ascension attempt the moment it starts and steps on the kobold who's going to try it before it can go off. Kurtulmak is the only thing standing between the multiverse and total Pun-Pun domination. :smallsmile:

What about Omnicificer, who is near instantaneous in his accent?

[Tr011]

Nope. (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Neutronium_Golem_(3.5e_Monster)) The forum does not allow cheeky, one-word answers.

OK, two things: Range optimization and a Wish afterwards. 15.000ft is easy to get if you specialize in range. And 50 AC + 560 HP are just numbers, DR 15/- when using admantine weapons (epic is obv. for an epic character).


To the topic: I think it is in the range of possibilities to kill any published enemy. Even gods. Being a Epic character is about fighting lesser deities and reshaping the setting. I.e. look at Apocalypse from the Sky (BoVD). It has 10 mile per CL radius. Assume a CL 21 + 1 from Ion stone + 1 from that Ring +10 from various buffs (I know you can get much higher, but this would be what any wizard would do in an actual play under a sane DM) for a total CL of 33. That is a diameter of 660 miles. Over a thousand kilometers. It's like you would destroy France with one spell. It deals 10d6 damage to creatures and objects, get a Rod of Maximize and one to pierce immunes for a total damage of 60, or 30 to immunes IIRC the metamagic feat from Sandstorm.
This means, only stone and high level characters/monsters and good magic items stay there, you can go out and loot and kill the damaged survivors.

Btw you do weaken the gods by destroying countries. They loose worshippers and thus power. It would be easy to weaken Pelor i.e.

I don't say it would be easy to defeat anything, but when you create a new Plane where Divinations don't work so not even the gods can see what you do and where you are, you can start making your master plan: Kill those Githyankie and all of their swords so you can use Astral Projection without any problem, then you go on your crusade against whoever you dislike while beeing completly immortal due to the Astral Projection (and, if you wish so, you can get let's say 3 more ways to immortality and use all of them, so no one easily messes with your weaknesses).

[Benly]

What about Omnicificer, who is near instantaneous in his accent?

The Omniscificer has the disadvantage of using a method (magic item crafting) that touches on a much more common portfolio. Since gods of magic tend to commonly be greater gods, they'll ping his ascension months before he actually does it, which makes him much easier to defuse. Pun-Pun's ascent is much more covert in regard to portfolio sense, since it will only ping less-common portfolios such as scalykind and transformation.

[deuxhero]

Good thing he relies on a campaign specific class from a setting where the gods may not exist then eh?

[tyckspoon]

Doesn't normal death effect immunity protect you from Life and Death? Such as that granted by a death ward spell, soulfire armor, or the undead / construct type?

RAI, it really shouldn't, but strictly yes- the Death abilities work 'like Destruction', which is a [Death] effect.



IIRC, the highest challenge rating monster that is in the SRD is this:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Hecatoncheires

Presuming that we advanced it to the highest advancement, it would have 140 HD. Could a level 21 character defeat that?

Yes. The Hecatoncheires is extraordinarily good at dealing out HP damage via physical attacks. But that's the *only* thing it does. There are several ways to be immune to death by HP damage or just outright immune to HP damage available pre-Epic; all you have to do is attach one of those methods to something with an offense capable of breaking the Hecaton's defenses and you win. A Mailman and a Frenzied Berserker charger could both do it pretty easily. (The Hecatoncheires doesn't beat it's own regen and DR, or I'd suggest creating a Reflect seed spell that can handle a hundred attacks, making yourself Huge, and just letting the thing kill itself on you.)

If you want to really push it, your high mark for 'not a god' should probably be an aged Epic Dragon. Standard draconic stats and defenses combined with a caster level high enough to have Epic Spellcasting of their own, or just buttloads of Improved Metamagic/Improved Spell Capacity if you don't want to get into the Epic Spells. I suppose it may stretch the definition of 'published entity' since they don't have pre-written feats and spells, tho.

[Stallion]

We should probably avoid turning this into a God-killing thread, we already have one of those and from what I read pretty much established that whether or not it is possible depends on your interpretation of the God's powers, which means it is an argument that could go on forever.

IIRC, the highest challenge rating monster that is in the SRD is this:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Hecatoncheires

Presuming that we advanced it to the highest advancement, it would have 140 HD. Could a level 21 character defeat that?

Easily. I'd be more worried about the Prismatic and Force dragons. Or something with template stacking. Advanced Paragon Pseudonatural (ELH one) etc etc etc Insert Great Wyrm Dragon Here would beat the hell out of the hundred headed retard.

[panaikhan]

I immediately thought of the Lady of Pain reading the title of this thread too, and though I do have stats for her from somewhere, i'm sure they aren't 'official'.

[Alleran]

Easily. I'd be more worried about the Prismatic and Force dragons. Or something with template stacking. Advanced Paragon Pseudonatural (ELH one) etc etc etc Insert Great Wyrm Dragon Here would beat the hell out of the hundred headed retard.
Time Dragons would make the Prismatic and Force dragons curl up in a ball and cry. Being able to time travel once they hit Great Wyrm status (which can happen in days from hatching), immune to any non-instantaneous effect that they don't want to be affected by, roll twice and pick the better number, 99 HD and a CL of 44 for their sorcerer casting, ridiculous defenses, time stop at will... the list goes on.

[Myth]

As I said, unstatted "creatures" such as Ao, Io and the Lady are out of the possibility. They are the DM. They are there to say "No, not even then." Any stats you may have for any of them are definitely not official.

[Answerer]

RAI
Sigh, really? We've been through this. Here, if you missed it:



Arguing that your own personal interpretation is RAI is vaguely insulting, methinks.

Back up your opinions with evidence and reasoning, not vague and inaccurate Appeals to Authority.
Who am I insulting?
When you say "I am right because it's intended" you're nullifying the validity of anyone else's contribution. Their intent is largely unknown and largely irrelevant in any case. So people just use RAI as a crutch when they don't feel like actually defending their positions. And as someone interested in debating things, yes, I find that somewhat insulting. If I'm taking the time to discuss something, I'd think it courteous of others to not waste my time with obvious logical fallacies.

And, of course, it's not merely about my wasted time. I'm more reacting to the notion that it is effectively wasting the time of everyone who reads the thread.

We cannot debate their intent, because they haven't (in almost all cases) published any statements clarifying their intent. The only reasonable thing to do is assume they intended what they wrote – not because it's likely that they did, but because it's meaningless to start guessing what they did and did not intend. Again, in the end, 90% of the time people start talking about RAI, they're just using it to unfairly prop up their own perspectives.

C'mon, you can do better than that. At the very least, justify your assertion that it isn't the intent. "Almost certainly not" is a statement that means nothing without some sort of backing.



TL;DR: [Citation Needed]

[Benly]

C'mon, you can do better than that. At the very least, justify your assertion that it isn't the intent. "Almost certainly not" is a statement that means nothing without some sort of backing.

I dunno, I think it's pretty fair to assert that the designers didn't intend to let a level 4 spell completely and perfectly block a greater death god's power to make things die, or at the least that they didn't realize they were doing that. I'm usually not too keen on ascribing authorial intent but I'm willing to let this particular one slide.

[Shadowleaf]

Beating a higher DR deity is pretty hard actually. Supreme Initiative + Alter Reality will kill you in the first round of combat, so you need to kill the deity before the initiative order sets in.
A deity's defenses are nothing to laugh at either, seeing as they should have every buff spell/ability in the game (including spells like Iron Body) permanently active through Alter Reality.
Also, you cannot summon a deity, so you'll have to face it on its home field. This means there'll (most likely) be an army of divine servants and/or nasty surprises (I'm a big fan of Spheres of Annihilation spread out over all the areas of the plane you're not using).
Probably the most important ability, though, is Portfolio Sense. Greater deities sense one week into the future "any event that involves their portfolio". This is loosely explained, but I think the God of Magic dying would count as 'involving Magic'. To beat him, you'd have to use some time travel shenanigans.

Doable? Probably. But it'll be a huge headache.

Edit:

I dunno, I think it's pretty fair to assert that the designers didn't intend to let a level 4 spell completely and perfectly block a greater death god's power to make things die, or at the least that they didn't realize they were doing that. I'm usually not too keen on ascribing authorial intent but I'm willing to let this particular one slide.
Greater Death God could just use Alter Reality instead.

[Answerer]

I dunno, I think it's pretty fair to assert that the designers didn't intend to let a level 4 spell completely and perfectly block a greater death god's power to make things die, or at the least that they didn't realize they were doing that. I'm usually not too keen on ascribing authorial intent but I'm willing to let this particular one slide.
See, that is an argument and one I'll buy. But just a plain assertion of the authors' intent bothers me greatly.

[Chronos]

The first time I saw the Neutronium Golem brought up in a thread, I came up with a way that a core-and-ELH ranger could do it without spells at level 21, given an absurd amount of wealth. Toss in BoED, and the same ranger can do it with a quite modest (for that level) amount of wealth. Toss in a single spell from the Spell Compendium, and any wizard at all (at least, one who hasn't banned Transmutation or Conjuration) can do it at level 17, at a cost of 500 XP. The basic problem is, the authors of the Immortal's Handbook didn't have a clue how to make proper epic-level challenges: They made all the numbers bigger, but didn't realize that numbers aren't everything.

[Wings of Peace]

Step 1.) Teleport far enough back in time that any relevant deities don't exist yet.

Step 2.) Develop an Epic Spell that blocks portfolio sense for you.

Step 3.) Win.

[dextercorvia]

Step 1.) Teleport far enough back in time that any relevant deities don't exist yet.

Step 2.) Develop an Epic Spell that blocks portfolio sense for you.

Step 3.) Win.

Wouldn't it be safer to teleport forward in time to a point where you had already defeated the relevant dieties?

[Flickerdart]

Beating a higher DR deity is pretty hard actually. Supreme Initiative + Alter Reality will kill you in the first round of combat, so you need to kill the deity before the initiative order sets in.
A deity's defenses are nothing to laugh at either, seeing as they should have every buff spell/ability in the game (including spells like Iron Body) permanently active through Alter Reality.
Also, you cannot summon a deity, so you'll have to face it on its home field. This means there'll (most likely) be an army of divine servants and/or nasty surprises (I'm a big fan of Spheres of Annihilation spread out over all the areas of the plane you're not using).
Probably the most important ability, though, is Portfolio Sense. Greater deities sense one week into the future "any event that involves their portfolio". This is loosely explained, but I think the God of Magic dying would count as 'involving Magic'. To beat him, you'd have to use some time travel shenanigans.

Doable? Probably. But it'll be a huge headache.

Edit:

Greater Death God could just use Alter Reality instead.
If they pre-buff for centuries before the fight, then you're not fighting the published creature anymore, because nothing would even remotely resemble the actual stat block.

[candycorn]

What about Omnicificer, who is near instantaneous in his accent?

Has the disadvantage of being restricted to that which is possible to do. Also has the delay between knowing everything and being able to act on it.

A character gaining omniscience would certainly come to the attention of a god of knowledge. Unless there is a way for that character to immediately and effectively resist a god, then he's kinda screwed.

Also, I think a level 21 character would not be able to beat a properly statted Great Wyrm Brass Dragon. It casts as a Sorceror 19, but after practiced spellcasting, will have CL 23. It will qualify for epic spellcasting as well. It will be able to do a mess of nasty things with 4 epic feats and 40 ranks in relevant epic spellcasting skills.

If highly optimized (to the level of the player), I don't see the player pulling a win.

[Flickerdart]

Also, I think a level 21 character would not be able to beat a properly statted Great Wyrm Brass Dragon. It casts as a Sorceror 19, but after practiced spellcasting, will have CL 23. It will qualify for epic spellcasting as well. It will be able to do a mess of nasty things with 4 epic feats and 40 ranks in relevant epic spellcasting skills.
What does it need Practiced Spellcaster for? Epic Spellcasting has no CL prerequisite.

Still, 40 ranks is pretty terrible for Epic spells, since without chaingating they're practically not worth using anyway. What can a check of Spellcraft 60 get the dragon in terms of Epic spells?

[tyckspoon]

Still, 40 ranks is pretty terrible for Epic spells, since without chaingating they're practically not worth using anyway. What can a check of Spellcraft 60 get the dragon in terms of Epic spells?

22 extra Natural Armor to feed into Scintillating Scales and a Dex score better than that of a large rock? The Fortify seed is really pretty efficient.

Edit: Oh, and a Ward against Disjunction and Greater Dispel Magic, that's a relatively low-DC effect too.

[Jack_Simth]

What does it need Practiced Spellcaster for? Epic Spellcasting has no CL prerequisite.
SR penetration, spell duration, things of that nature.
Still, 40 ranks is pretty terrible for Epic spells, since without chaingating they're practically not worth using anyway. What can a check of Spellcraft 60 get the dragon in terms of Epic spells?Depends on how much cheddar is permitted in the crafting. Without large amounts of mitigation, Epic spells are rather... sub-par, you're usually better off applying metamagic to traditional spells. With large amounts of mitigation, they get rather insanely powerful.

For the most part, Epic spellcasting is broken in the 'does not work as seems to be intended' sense. It's either broken-weak, or broken-strong, and the middle ground is very difficult to ascertain.

[Acanous]

There's a barbarian that can kill any published entity. Grab the Mageslayer line including pierce magical consealment, go runescared berserker for Anti-Magic Field, and to top it off, take the feats Iron Will and Divine Denial.
Then use your WBL to pump all three saves over 100, gnab a ring of Evasion and a ring of Mettle.

You are now immune to all magic, can kill anything with your two-handed pouncing leap attack shock trooper BS, and don't care about salient divine abilities from any published god.
Oh, and you need to be a raptorian so you can fly.


I've seen one of these in a campaign dole out a few thousand damage in a round. DR won't stand up to it, published HP totals under 10,000 won't survive the round. The only way to win is to flee, even for gods and dragons, and that's a win by RAW.

[Talakeal]

There's a barbarian that can kill any published entity. Grab the Mageslayer line including pierce magical consealment, go runescared berserker for Anti-Magic Field, and to top it off, take the feats Iron Will and Divine Denial.
Then use your WBL to pump all three saves over 100, gnab a ring of Evasion and a ring of Mettle.

You are now immune to all magic, can kill anything with your two-handed pouncing leap attack shock trooper BS, and don't care about salient divine abilities from any published god.
Oh, and you need to be a raptorian so you can fly.


I've seen one of these in a campaign dole out a few thousand damage in a round. DR won't stand up to it, published HP totals under 10,000 won't survive the round. The only way to win is to flee, even for gods and dragons, and that's a win by RAW.

And yet, he still wouldn't be T1. And people wonder why the core fighter and monk are so bad...

[candycorn]

There's a barbarian that can kill any published entity. Grab the Mageslayer line including pierce magical consealment, go runescared berserker for Anti-Magic Field, and to top it off, take the feats Iron Will and Divine Denial.
Then use your WBL to pump all three saves over 100, gnab a ring of Evasion and a ring of Mettle.

You are now immune to all magic, can kill anything with your two-handed pouncing leap attack shock trooper BS, and don't care about salient divine abilities from any published god.
Oh, and you need to be a raptorian so you can fly.


I've seen one of these in a campaign dole out a few thousand damage in a round. DR won't stand up to it, published HP totals under 10,000 won't survive the round. The only way to win is to flee, even for gods and dragons, and that's a win by RAW.


It's specifically said that deific power can largely ignore mortal magic, including AMF. Also, if you're in an AMF, rings of evasion and mettle don't work, nor does about 99% of save boosting stuff, or other buff effects. Also, if you activate AMF, all the creature has to do is avoid you for 10 minutes per level, then engage. The above dragon? Could stay 200 feet away easily, waiting your buff out.

In addition, the brass dragon above could crush it. Easy Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Orb of Acid), Improved Metamagic x2, Epic Spellcasting, Enhance Spell, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell, Energy Admixture, Twin Spell.

Spellsurge an:
Enhanced Maximized Empowered Twinned Admixture (electricity) Orb of Acid.

15d6 Acid + 15d6 electricity
Enhanced: 25d6 Acid + 25d6 electricity
Maximized: 150 Acid + 150 Electricity
Empowered: +43.75 Acid + 43.75 Electricity
Twin Spell: +193.75 Acid + 193.75 Electricity

Total: 387.5 Acid + 387.5 Electricity
No save, range touch, not suppressed in AMF... And that's not even really trying.

Alternately, use spells to get to a +120 UMD, then UMD a staff of Disjunction at CL 100, granting a 100% chance to crush the AMF.

Edit: Or look at Force dragon.
78 ranks for the casting.
+104 spellcraft, assuming no buffs, just ranks. (boostable, easily, to +160 or higher)
Casts as a Level 36 caster
26 Feats. Yeah, that many.
Brutal attack and damage bonuses, and easy access to pounce.

Optimized to the same level as a 21st level character, that character has almost no chance.

And Prismatic Dragon is worse.

[Bogardan_Mage]

Good thing he relies on a campaign specific class from a setting where the gods may not exist then eh?
Then an unlikely but perfectly explainable accident befalls him 17 weeks before his ascension begins. Possibly nonexistant gods tend to be the most concerned with protecting their turf.

[Alleran]

Then an unlikely but perfectly explainable accident befalls him 17 weeks before his ascension begins. Possibly nonexistant gods tend to be the most concerned with protecting their turf.
As it stands, I believe Pun-Pun relies on the Sarrukh (he has to be a Scaled One that is also native to Toril), which is FR-specific.

[georgie_leech]

Personally, I'd argue that once you get to the point of divine intervention, it's pretty clear that it's at a ridiculous point. There are no mechanical ways of destroying Pun-pun, or the Omnisificer, or any other infinte build once it's set up. Bringing in the gods with "well they'd sense it well in advance and stop it!" just leads to the obvious question of "Why?" I've never seen a lick of fluff or need or reason for either of the above builds to directly challenge the dieties, and even if they did, , who's to say another diety wouldn't intervene on their side? I'd imagine Cyric wouldn't say no to a challenger of Kelemvor, for instance. Saying that what ammounts to the DM saying "it happens" can defeat a character is a moot point.

[Benly]

Bringing in the gods with "well they'd sense it well in advance and stop it!" just leads to the obvious question of "Why?"

Because the question is "can (x) defeat any published entity", gods are published entities, and if you don't make the gods in question as serious as the PC is about winning the fight it's an arbitrary handicap.

That said, it's probably best to leave gods off the "any published entity" question, because they explicitly cheat.

[Shadowleaf]

If they pre-buff for centuries before the fight, then you're not fighting the published creature anymore, because nothing would even remotely resemble the actual stat block.Sure you would. It's part of their abilities. That's like saying Balors won't keep their Unholy Auras up before combat, or NPC Spellcasters won't be rocking their persisted spells. Deities have the ability to do it, along with the intelligence to see the reasoning behind it, not to mention all the time they need - if they by RAW cannot change the Time Trait on their plane and do not have access to a plane with a good time trait, they can at least keep firing off (metamagic'd) Time Stop spells.

If they're not buffed, then you're playing them dumper than they are.



Because the question is "can (x) defeat any published entity", gods are published entities, and if you don't make the gods in question as serious as the PC is about winning the fight it's an arbitrary handicap.

That said, it's probably best to leave gods off the "any published entity" question, because they explicitly cheat.
How do they cheat? Alter Reality?

[Alleran]

Deities have the ability to do it, along with the intelligence to see the reasoning behind it, not to mention all the time they need - if they by RAW cannot change the Time Trait on their plane and do not have access to a plane with a good time trait, they can at least keep firing off (metamagic'd) Time Stop spells.
And let us not forget that they can use Alter Reality to duplicate Genesis, creating a demiplane with the time traits that they do need. If they have Alter Reality, of course, but even if they don't, no deity worth the name is going to be unable to get access to more than enough scrolls of Genesis anyway.

[Shadowleaf]

And let us not forget that they can use Alter Reality to duplicate Genesis, creating a demiplane with the time traits that they do need. If they have Alter Reality, of course, but even if they don't, no deity worth the name is going to be unable to get access to more than enough scrolls of Genesis anyway.I figured there might be some implications with a deity throwing his hands in the air and saying "Screw it, I'm moving out of this dump!". Their original plane might not be coterminous with the Astral Plane, which might have some advantages, for instance.

(Obviously not RAW)

[Benly]

How do they cheat? Alter Reality?

Alter Reality is a good start but it's nothing you couldn't do with enough spell slots (and the really tough nuts have plenty of those anyway). The real game-changers are the various powers that explicitly can't be countered without divine power and especially the Portfolio Sense/Remote Sensing combo on greater gods with relevant portfolios. There is basically nothing useful you can do to set up for the fight that a god of magic won't see coming and have a million options to counter months before you do them, so adequate preparation is not an option - the fight is going to start three months before the point in your preparations where somebody with an Int of 50 and enough Spellcraft to accurately identify any epic spell you're researching is able to figure out you're gearing up to kill him.

[Shadowleaf]

Alter Reality is a good start but it's nothing you couldn't do with enough spell slots (and the really tough nuts have plenty of those anyway). The real game-changers are the various powers that explicitly can't be countered without divine power and especially the Portfolio Sense/Remote Sensing combo on greater gods with relevant portfolios. There is basically nothing useful you can do to set up for the fight that a god of magic won't see coming and have a million options to counter months before you do them, so adequate preparation is not an option - the fight is going to start three months before the point in your preparations where somebody with an Int of 50 and enough Spellcraft to accurately identify any epic spell you're researching is able to figure out you're gearing up to kill him.Not entirely true. This is why you need Time Travel - unless the deity can A) Detect your motives for going back in time, or B) See alternative timelines where he doesn't exist (YMMV depending on your preferred time travel theory), you can get the jump on him.

[Benly]

Not entirely true. This is why you need Time Travel - unless the deity can A) Detect your motives for going back in time, or B) See alternative timelines where he doesn't exist (YMMV depending on your preferred time travel theory), you can get the jump on him.

Time travel would indeed be pretty handy if there were any epic seeds that let you do it. Also, you'd need to travel back in time to before he existed (or at least before he was a greater god), which should probably send up red flags - if you don't, he'll still get the jump on you, it'll just be in another time period.

[Chess435]

*snip*

That's the wrong neutronium golem stat block. The original one has about a quarter million hp, unhittable AC, DR 1500/-, and auras of "make a Dc: Not Gonna Happen Fortitude save or be disintegrated" and "take this bucket of d10's worth of divine fire damage" extended out for hundreds of miles. Oh, and it could hit you for 6-figure damage. I believe it's listed CR is OVER 9000!

[TheGeckoKing]

I can manage ECL 7. Lets call this character "The Godtamer".

1: Apply the Symbiotic Template to an LA +0 race. It uses the HD of the host, so the host needs to be ECL 1 to get the most outta this.

2: "For the guest, it just needs to be an animal, humanoid, plant, or vermin. (The two creatures need not be the same type.) One (hereafter referred to as the guest) must be at least two size categories smaller than the other (hereafter referred to as the host)." It doesn't say it can't be a templated creature, and we all know we can stack templates into infinity onto some poor Tiny creature.
I advise stacking temple after template, then using the Half Fey template + Greenbound Creature template to make it qualify. It is VITAL that the creature be a living creature and two sizes smaller than the host when you apply Half-Fey so we don't waste our time. Now we have some Tiny Cosmic Horror with mental scores of "TOO DAMN HIGH".

3: Use that as the Guest creature for the Symbiotic Template, and laugh because the template specifically says you use the Guest's mental scores, but use the Host's HD. Now you have its mental scores of "TOO DAMN HIGH".

4: Play an Symbiotic Template LA+1/Wizard 5/Zhentarim Skylord 1, and laugh as you gain a creature as a mount with the only cap being a HD cap of 1 + Zhent SL levels + Cha Mod.

5: Choose a Greater Deity of your preference as your mount. They can just transform into something big enough to ride as a mount if you want to be pendantic.

6: Order them to transfer their Divine Ranks to you, and then order them to self-destruct or just kill them with your newly acquired powers.
6b: If the Deity won't pass over it's DvR, then just have the blasted thing kill stuff for you. Use Psychic Reformation/Other Retraining to sort out the cruddy optimisation the deities have.

7: ??????

8: PROFIT!
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't trip any Portfolio senses until the God became your mount (at which point it's too late to really do much), unless Pun Pun and his portfolio of Cheesy Builds actually exists.

[Aharon]

I can manage ECL 7. Lets call this character "The Godtamer".

1: Apply the Symbiotic Template to an LA +0 race. It uses the HD of the host, so the host needs to be ECL 1 to get the most outta this.

2: "For the guest, it just needs to be an animal, humanoid, plant, or vermin. (The two creatures need not be the same type.) One (hereafter referred to as the guest) must be at least two size categories smaller than the other (hereafter referred to as the host)." It doesn't say it can't be a templated creature, and we all know we can stack templates into infinity onto some poor Tiny creature.
I advise stacking temple after template, then using the Half Fey template + Greenbound Creature template to make it qualify. It is VITAL that the creature be a living creature and two sizes smaller than the host when you apply Half-Fey so we don't waste our time. Now we have some Tiny Cosmic Horror with mental scores of "TOO DAMN HIGH".

3: Use that as the Guest creature for the Symbiotic Template, and laugh because the template specifically says you use the Guest's mental scores, but use the Host's HD. Now you have its mental scores of "TOO DAMN HIGH".

4: Play an Symbiotic Template LA+1/Wizard 5/Zhentarim Skylord 1, and laugh as you gain a creature as a mount with the only cap being a HD cap of 1 + Zhent SL levels + Cha Mod.

5: Choose a Greater Deity of your preference as your mount. They can just transform into something big enough to ride as a mount if you want to be pendantic.

6: Order them to transfer their Divine Ranks to you, and then order them to self-destruct or just kill them with your newly acquired powers.
6b: If the Deity won't pass over it's DvR, then just have the blasted thing kill stuff for you. Use Psychic Reformation/Other Retraining to sort out the cruddy optimisation the deities have.

7: ??????

8: PROFIT!
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't trip any Portfolio senses until the God became your mount (at which point it's too late to really do much), unless Pun Pun and his portfolio of Cheesy Builds actually exists.

Uh... no? There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin. But let's focus on two main points:

1. You call a flying monster as your mount. You don't call any monster whatsoever and then command it to become a mount.
2. Even if that worked, the mount serves the skymage loyally as if it were a ranger's or druid's animal companion. That doesn't include suicide and giving up all ones power.

[TheGeckoKing]

Uh... no? There's so much wrong with that I don't even know where to begin. But let's focus on two main points:

1. You call a flying monster as your mount. You don't call any monster whatsoever and then command it to become a mount.
2. Even if that worked, the mount serves the skymage loyally as if it were a ranger's or druid's animal companion. That doesn't include suicide and giving up all ones power.

1. So you pick a deity that can fly. No biggie.
2. I did give the option of just ordering the deity to kill your enemies as another idea.
On those two parts, there's no problem. The class even talks about high level Skymages having demons and dragons as mounts. Mind you, if it's mechanically wrong, I wouldn't be surprised.

[Togo]

Hm... The one thing I notice about all these 'ultimate' builds (and I'm not pointing particular fingers here) is that they rely on some fairly generous ideas about RAW. For example, I find the arguements that divine minion has the wildshape class ability to be pretty weak, I don't see that ice assassin can duplicate a deity, and I don't agree that a Sarrukh can assume every possible capablity is an (ex) creature ability.

That's not an in-game objection. I just don't think these things work mechanically, I don't think they are RAW. They're RAW with a healthy dose of wishful thinking. It's fun wishful thinking, but it still relies on the way someone has chosen to interpret the RAW. They involve what one jhas been referred to as 'player fiat' - the builder of the PC making assumptions about rules and circumstance that are potentially controvertial. Pun-Pun and his ilk are great fun, but they don't need to be dominate every discussion of every game.

Then again, I'm a 'sane' DM, so maybe I'm off-topic? :smallamused:

I would also note the traditional four ways to kill off Pun-Pun work equally well against most uber-builds. Reproduced here:

1) SLAP
Statistical likelihood of alternative Pun-Pun. Basically the principle that any universe where such a build is possible, you can't rely on being the only person to have used it.
2) I time travel first!
All time travellers arrive at their destination simultaneously, by definition. Anyone time traveling to a point to achieve something should be prepared for all their opponents who can also timetravel, past, present and future, to turn up simultaneously to stop them
3) Remove from reality for the win
There are a fair few ways of removing local reality, or disrupting enough that various abilities simply don't function. My favourite is to use the old spelljammer mechanics republished in polyhedron to crack the crystal sphere, removing everything inside from reality and time in a way that is impossible to predict by any means. Various abuses of demi-planes, alternate realities, named NPCs like the Lady of Pain and the Spire in the Outlands are all variations on this same theme, which might be better summed up as...
4) Setting trumps build
Think about it logically. The setting must allow your character to exist. The setting thus includes every capability that your character has, plus some that it doesn't. How can a subset of capabilities possibly be stronger than all of them?

In answer to the OP, allowing any published beastie means that any kind of mechanical victory is probably out. Even with the finest optimising these boards can provide you're still going to struggle have a level 21 character defeat published creatures intended for parties of 40th level characters based just on the numbers alone. So you're looking at some kind of rules exploit to win, and your answer it going to depend on where you draw the line. For any given monster, I reckon there is a PC build that can probably defeat it. For any given PC you could probably design a monster to defeat it, but if we're limited to monster builds that have already been published, then that gives the PC a chance.

So we're looking for something less out there than Pun-Pun, but still capable of taking out high CR monsters. I'd certainly be interested in seeing such a PC build.

[JadePhoenix]

False, at least in the case of Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun literally has the ability to give himself any ability he can think of, which, when combined with arbitrarily high Int, Wis, and Cha scores, means that's just about anything ever. Plus, he can arguably do so retroactively if he chose to.

Pun-Pun is literally, by RAW, omnipotent, once he has finished his transcendence. Even if you have something that says "No, not even then," Pun-Pun can still say "except if you're me."

Have you actually read the Pun-Pun thread?
Pun-Pun only works if you consider the gods don't stop him. And they would. So you can't kill the gods with Pun-Pun, because Pun-Pun only works if they are ignored.


Personally, I'd argue that once you get to the point of divine intervention, it's pretty clear that it's at a ridiculous point. There are no mechanical ways of destroying Pun-pun, or the Omnisificer, or any other infinte build once it's set up. Bringing in the gods with "well they'd sense it well in advance and stop it!" just leads to the obvious question of "Why?" I've never seen a lick of fluff or need or reason for either of the above builds to directly challenge the dieties, and even if they did, , who's to say another diety wouldn't intervene on their side? I'd imagine Cyric wouldn't say no to a challenger of Kelemvor, for instance. Saying that what ammounts to the DM saying "it happens" can defeat a character is a moot point.
You should really reread the Pun-Pun thread. You seem to have forgotten the point where be gets divine ranks and such.

[Wings of Peace]

Have you actually read the Pun-Pun thread?
Pun-Pun only works if you consider the gods don't stop him. And they would. So you can't kill the gods with Pun-Pun, because Pun-Pun only works if they are ignored.

Which gods in particular are you referring to? A god of evil for when he makes a deal with Pazuzu? That's not something that's going to make a god say "Omg hax". A god of magic for when he uses a Candle of Invocation? Candles of Invocation aren't so rare that they'd set off a red flag when they're activated.

For that matter, have -you- actually read how Pun-Pun works? You're saying that the gods would stop Pun-Pun as if they have a magic Pun-Pun detector. God's only sense things that relate to their portfolios and the individual steps that allow Pun-Pun to become omnipotent are fairly innocuous when observed in isolation from each other.

[JadePhoenix]

For that matter, have -you- actually read how Pun-Pun works? You're saying that the gods would stop Pun-Pun as if they have a magic Pun-Pun detector. God's only sense things that relate to their portfolios and the individual steps that allow Pun-Pun to become omnipotent are fairly innocuous when observed in isolation from each other.

Any greater deity with serpents, reptilians, kobolds, humanoids, magic, pacts, magic or anything like that could detect it. The deities are smarter than Pun-Pun by definition, most have absolute control over time and space and they don't want someone stealing their turf.
Pun-Pun's creater himself acknowledged Pun-Pun can't work once the gods are considered, but you're free to claim otherwise, I believe. I just choose to side with his creator on this one.

[Togo]

God's only sense things that relate to their portfolios and the individual steps that allow Pun-Pun to become omnipotent are fairly innocuous when observed in isolation from each other.

Creating new deities that share the same portfolio? Killing deities? How are these innocuous?

[Wings of Peace]

Pun-Pun's creater himself acknowledged Pun-Pun can't work once the gods are considered, but you're free to claim otherwise, I believe. I just choose to side with his creator on this one.

Source and evidence creator is correct?


Any greater deity with serpents, reptilians, kobolds, humanoids, magic, pacts, magic or anything like that could detect it.

A deity of magic would detect the spells Pun-Pun is using, they wouldn't know to what ends. A deity of serpents, reptiles, kobolds, humanoids, would detect... that some time ago a Kobold was born? I really don't see with the racial examples.


The deities are smarter than Pun-Pun by definition, most have absolute control over time and space and they don't want someone stealing their turf.

Smarter than him by what definition? Being clever or wise isn't the same as being omniscient. If anything their age and intelligence would be a handicap because an intelligent person would say "Oh, another person among thousands using a Candle of Invocation." Further, few deities in FR or even most D&D campaign settings have absolute control over time and space. Most only have that level of control over their home plane and whatever control their divine spellcasting allows them.


Creating new deities that share the same portfolio? Killing deities? How are these innocuous?

I can see two possible arguments here. The first is the one you've proposed, the second is that since the new deities are just the effect of a spell the only thing that would occur is that a deity of magic would notice somebody just cast Ice Assassin. And are you referring to Pun-Pun killing the deities at a later date? Because that would occur after he achieves full power.

[JadePhoenix]

Source and creator is correct?
Here (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869366/The_most_powerful_character._EVER.). It's supposed to have a section on the gods... be it's been 'under construction' ever since. Hence, he has no arguments onto how Pun-Pun could prevent the gods from preventing his ascention.


A deity of magic would detect the spells Pun-Pun is using, they wouldn't know to what ends. A deity of serpents, reptiles, kobolds, humanoids, would detect... that some time ago a Kobold was born? I really don't see with the racial examples.
If your 18 Int kobold figured it out, the more intelligent deity with more Knowledge could also figure it out. It's the same concept behind the Omniscifier.


Smarter than him by what definition?
By RAW definition, of course. Intelligence is an ability, after all.



I can see two possible arguments here. The first is the one you've proposed, the second is that since the new deities are just the effect of a spell the only thing that would occur is that a deity of magic would notice somebody just cast Ice Assassin. And are you referring to Pun-Pun killing the deities at a later date? Because that would occur after he achieves full power.
Let me put it this way. Many deities can notice Pun-Pun going up his ladder to power. All of those deities are smarter (having higher Int and Wis) and know more (with more ranks in Knowledge and Spellcraft) than him. They by definition know more about the trick he is trying to pull than him. Even if they don't notice it immediately, they have at very least 17 weeks to think about it, use divinations, whatever, to completely figure it out. As a thought experiment and RAW abuse, it works nicely. Inside an actual setting, Pun-Pun doesn't work. It's not supposed to.

[Wings of Peace]

Let me put it this way. Many deities can notice Pun-Pun going up his ladder to power. All of those deities are smarter (having higher Int and Wis) and know more (with more ranks in Knowledge and Spellcraft) than him. They by definition know more about the trick he is trying to pull than them. Even if they don't notice it immediately, they have at very least 17 weeks to think about it, use divinations, whatever, to completely figure it out. As a thought experiment and RAW abuse, it works nicely. Inside an actual setting, Pun-Pun doesn't work. It's not supposed to.

My point is the gods have no reason to use divination or even investigate the Kobold. Maybe if they all traded notes on everything that their divine senses had detected that day then somebody would notice something was up but as it stands each instance of Pun-Pun acting lacks the context to piece together his ultimate goal.

You argue that they're smarter than Pun-Pun but a smart person with no sense of context would just nod at the events because they sense tens of thousands of similar events every day (probably a smaller number for people praying to Pazuzu but it's still far from an isolated incident). You also mentioned the Omnificer but that's an entirely different principle, the Omnificer had infinite knowledge skills not an infinite knowledge stat, the two are different.

[Answerer]

Have you actually read the Pun-Pun thread?
Pun-Pun only works if you consider the gods don't stop him. And they would. So you can't kill the gods with Pun-Pun, because Pun-Pun only works if they are ignored.
The question asked about an already-extant 21st-level character.

Pun-Pun can happen well before 21st.

How the 21st-level character got to 21st without being killed is beyond the defined scope of the exercise.

[JadePhoenix]

The question asked about an already-extant 21st-level character.

Pun-Pun can happen well before 21st.

How the 21st-level character got to 21st without being killed is beyond the defined scope of the exercise.

Pun-Pun's ascension is not the same as leveling up. That much is quite clear. Sorry, your argument holds no water.


My point is the gods have no reason to use divination or even investigate the Kobold. Maybe if they all traded notes on everything that their divine senses had detected that day then somebody would notice something was up but as it stands each instance of Pun-Pun acting lacks the context to piece together his ultimate goal.
Portfolio sense detects the event and the place. Deities, with their high Knowledge, know about ascension. They detect Pun-Pun trying to ascend (at least) 17 weeks before he starts it.
We're talking Faerun here (Manipulate Form only works in FR). Cyric has intrigue and deception in his portfolio. 'Ascending to godhood' is a deception. Cyric is also power hungry and wary of contenders. He'd destroy Pun-Pun before ascension. Mystra detects his use of magic. Oghma detects the invention of an ascension mode. Grumbar detects his oath to Pazuzu. Shar detects the unrevealed secret of his ascension. Talos detects the destruction he should bring.
Lord Ao does not fall within the confines of this thread (he has no stats), but he knows everything and is actually omnipotent.
Again - Pun-Pun only works a rules-bending throught exercise, he is not an actual character and wouldn't work as an actual character.


You argue that they're smarter than Pun-Pun but a smart person with no sense of context would just nod at the events because they sense tens of thousands of similar events every day (probably a smaller number for people praying to Pazuzu but it's still far from an isolated incident).
I disagree. Humans nod at things as inconsequential because we don't have the time to deal with everything. Deities have.

You also mentioned the Omnificer but that's an entirely different principle, the Omnificer had infinite knowledge skills not an infinite knowledge stat, the two are different.
I don't see how they are different, but even if they were, deities can easily use the Omnificer trick by themselves.

[Benly]

My point is the gods have no reason to use divination or even investigate the Kobold. Maybe if they all traded notes on everything that their divine senses had detected that day then somebody would notice something was up but as it stands each instance of Pun-Pun acting lacks the context to piece together his ultimate goal.

As soon as a greater deity of scalykind pings a kobold using Manipulate Form to grant itself an arbitrarily powerful new ability every round, it's going to notice. Alternately, you could say "Pun-Pun becoming nigh-omnipotent" is a single event with bearing on the scalykind portfolio.

Saying that it's not going to ping Portfolio Sense because each individual step is insignificant is like saying that stabbing a god to death won't ping Portfolio Sense for relevant portfolios because, after all, it's just someone thrusting his arm forward over and over and there's nothing interesting about that.

[georgie_leech]

As soon as a greater deity of scalykind pings a kobold using Manipulate Form to grant itself an arbitrarily powerful new ability every round, it's going to notice. Alternately, you could say "Pun-Pun becoming nigh-omnipotent" is a single event with bearing on the scalykind portfolio.

Saying that it's not going to ping Portfolio Sense because each individual step is insignificant is like saying that stabbing a god to death won't ping Portfolio Sense for relevant portfolios because, after all, it's just someone thrusting his arm forward over and over and there's nothing interesting about that.

Ah, but in that case the intent is what is important. I've never seen a lick of evidence to suggest that Pun-Pun ascends for the purpose of killing gods. he's ascending solely for the purpose of acquiring as much power as possible, which is one of the goals of a vast majority of creatures in the D&D universe. So if you argue the gods would kill any kobold that is aquiring power, you'd have to argue that they'd kill any creature attempting this trick, as any character can pull ascension off with a PaO or two to set up the conditions. In that context, however, the arguement falls short because all PC's, by virtue of leveling up, would be aquiring power and so be smote before they can get too upity. From the continued existence of most PC's, we can assume they do not simply squash power seekers on reflex, so have no reason to single out this particular Kobold.

[JadePhoenix]

Ah, but in that case the intent is what is important. I've never seen a lick of evidence to suggest that Pun-Pun ascends for the purpose of killing gods. he's ascending solely for the purpose of acquiring as much power as possible, which is one of the goals of a vast majority of creatures in the D&D universe. So if you argue the gods would kill any kobold that is aquiring power, you'd have to argue that they'd kill any creature attempting this trick, as any character can pull ascension off with a PaO or two to set up the conditions. In that context, however, the arguement falls short because all PC's, by virtue of leveling up, would be aquiring power and so be smote before they can get too upity. From the continued existence of most PC's, we can assume they do not simply squash power seekers on reflex, so have no reason to single out this particular Kobold.

Except Pun-Pun is acquiring more power than the gods and as such becomes a threat to them. Whenever a mortal does something like that in Faerun, the gods do something about them.
In fact, the gods act in Faerun for a lot less than that. Drizzt Do'Urden changing allegiances got Lolth herself to interfere...and he was a low-level male drow noncaster at the time.
Remember what a sarrukh is, even. Gating a sarrukh? That's asking for trouble, since they can fundamentally mess up the rules of magic (like Pun-Pun does). Why you Mystra allow that? In fact, Mystra can simply shut off the Weave and the Gate spell won't work for Pun-Pun.

[NoldorForce]

Believe me, these kinds of issues were fleshed out before. Like georgie_leech said, traditionally Pun-Pun is held to desire power for the express purpose of sitting on it. That's not a threat to anyone unless you assume a zero-sum interpretation of divine power, which is not supported by the rules (Ice Assassin deities) or most campaign settings.

Additionally, the "standard" two-minute ascension involves a critical component at the end. Remember how Pun-Pun uses the Candle of Invocation for three wishes from an efreeti? The last of those wishes is a Plane Shift to the Far Realm, which due to non-linear time allows him to be effectively unassailable from any outside source, at least until he gets back. So any deity that's thinking to nail Pun-Pun while he's actually powering up can't do a thing, and once Pun-Pun gets back he can wait a few months to stay under the Portfolio Sense radar. Plus, with the time he has available in the Far Realm he can make clones or whatever to come back with him and safeguard the whole process through time travel. (They'll have to wait the requisite few months as well.)

Finally, if even conjuring forth a Sarrukh and getting its "blessing" is cause for alarm, then why was the whole race not unceremoniously stomped out of existence tens of millennia ago? Through similar shenanigans it would have been perfectly possible for a few Sarrukh and a dominated kobold to do the exact same thing, only even more inconspicuously and on one of their own.

[JadePhoenix]

Believe me, these kinds of issues were fleshed out before. Like georgie_leech said, traditionally Pun-Pun is held to desire power for the express purpose of sitting on it. That's not a threat to anyone unless you assume a zero-sum interpretation of divine power, which is not supported by the rules (Ice Assassin deities) or most campaign settings.
Emphasis mine.
Pun-Pun is FR specific. And guess what? Zero-sum divine power.


Additionally, the "standard" two-minute ascension involves a critical component at the end. Remember how Pun-Pun uses the Candle of Invocation for three wishes from an efreeti? The last of those wishes is a Plane Shift to the Far Realm, which due to non-linear time allows him to be effectively unassailable from any outside source, at least until he gets back. So any deity that's thinking to nail Pun-Pun while he's actually powering up can't do a thing, and once Pun-Pun gets back he can wait a few months to stay under the Portfolio Sense radar. Plus, with the time he has available in the Far Realm he can make clones or whatever to come back with him and safeguard the whole process through time travel. (They'll have to wait the requisite few months as well.)
As far as I know, there is no Far Realm in 3.5 Faerun.
Even then, knowing about it would require high Knowledge (the plane), which Pun-Pun lacks, and non-linear time is not guaranteed to work in his favor. Where did you get the notion the deities' time is measured in the same way as time in the Material Plane? Whichever time Pun-Pun has, any deity has more time - they have Genesis, Plane Shift and Time Stop at will due to AR.


Finally, if even conjuring forth a Sarrukh and getting its "blessing" is cause for alarm, then why was the whole race not unceremoniously stomped out of existence tens of millennia ago? Through similar shenanigans it would have been perfectly possible for a few Sarrukh and a dominated kobold to do the exact same thing, only even more inconspicuously and on one of their own.
Guess what: they were. Have a read of Serpent Kingdoms, please.

[Alleran]

As far as I know, there is no Far Realm in 3.5 Faerun.
Yes there is. There's a few references to creatures from it finding their way to Faerun and chasing around after some members of the Wands family of Waterdeep.

[Jack_Simth]

Have you actually read the Pun-Pun thread?Portions of it, at least. One of a number of things such optimization threads assume is best possible rules interpretations. If a particular clause in the magical stacking rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/castingSpells.htm#sameEffectwithDifferingResults) are enforced for Supernatural abilities, Pun-Pun's listed ascension doesn't work - any ability granted by manipulate form immediately suppresses any prior abilities granted by manipulate form; he gets *one* ability (which may very well be 'Neener-neener', as the Sarruk is badly written, but still...).

From one perspective, it doesn't apply, as the specific clause references spells. However, from that selfsame perspective, Line of Effect (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicOverview/spellDescriptions.htm#lineofEffect) also doesn't apply to Supernatural abilities (worded the same way), so that Ghost with a ring of X-Ray Vision can just repeat-slam boulders into you from the other side of a wall (or from inside the floor, or the ceiling, or...).

[georgie_leech]

Except Pun-Pun is acquiring more power than the gods and as such becomes a threat to them. Whenever a mortal does something like that in Faerun, the gods do something about them.
In fact, the gods act in Faerun for a lot less than that. Drizzt Do'Urden changing allegiances got Lolth herself to interfere...and he was a low-level male drow noncaster at the time.
Remember what a sarrukh is, even. Gating a sarrukh? That's asking for trouble, since they can fundamentally mess up the rules of magic (like Pun-Pun does). Why you Mystra allow that? In fact, Mystra can simply shut off the Weave and the Gate spell won't work for Pun-Pun.

Drizzt basically flipped off his mother and the entire cult/religion dedicated to Lolth, killed dozens if not hundreds of drow in all his tales, and was instrumental in preventing the capture of Mithral Hall by Menzoberanzan. The only thing this CHAOTIC EVIL (i.e. already prone to overreaction and vengeance) did to him? Allowed his mother (who was also already pissed off at him) to send a reanimated version of his father after him. No appearing in front of him and smiting him, no mobilisation of drow armies to chase after him, and certainly no "lol no" Alter Reality fun to just unmake something cleraly defined as her enemy, even during the Time of Troubles when Lolth was forced to be on the same plane as him. In other words, explicitly hating, defying, and thwarting a goddess had very few direct divine reprecussions. So why should a kobold aquiring power for the sake of it (I believe the fluff on the original thread was "you want to benefit the universe") trigger a greater reaction?

[JadePhoenix]

Drizzt basically flipped off his mother and the entire cult/religion dedicated to Lolth, killed dozens if not hundreds of drow in all his tales, and was instrumental in preventing the capture of Mithral Hall in Menzoberanzan. The only thing this CHAOTIC EVIL (i.e. already prone to overreaction and vengeance) did to him? Allowed his mother (who was also already pissed off at him) to send a reanimated version of his father after him.
That was before Mithral Hall, before killing dozens or hundreds of drow. He had killed THREE DROW by the time Lolth sent zin-carla against him. Three. Drow.


No appearing in front of him and smiting him, no mobilisation of drow armies to chase after him, and certainly no "lol no" Alter Reality fun to just unmake something cleraly defined as her enemy, even during the Time of Troubles when Lolth was forced to be on the same plane as him. In other words, explicitly hating, defying, and thwarting a goddess had very few direct divine reprecussions. So why should a kobold aquiring power for the sake of it (I believe the fluff on the original thread was "you want to benefit the universe") trigger a greater reaction?
"Greater reaction"? Negating the Gate spell is a free action for Mystra. In case you missed it, FR has zero-sum divine power. Pun-Pun's ascension directly threatens the gods themselves.

[georgie_leech]

That was before Mithral Hall, before killing dozens or hundreds of drow. He had killed THREE DROW by the time Lolth sent zin-carla against him. Three. Drow.

Which was precisely my point. That is the only thing "Lolth" ever did in retribution, and that was more of his mother's actions than Lolth's. If the gods are as quick to smiting impudent creatures as you suggest, what makes Drizzt so special?


"Greater reaction"? Negating the Gate spell is a free action for Mystra. In case you missed it, FR has zero-sum divine power. Pun-Pun's ascension directly threatens the gods themselves.

Right, in that Divine Power is determined by the number of worshipers etc etc as determined by Ao, formerly by the Tablets of Fate. I've never once seen the claim that Pun-pun aims to attract, destroy, or deny dieties their followers, and thus their "divine power" as granted remains unchanged. And by "greater" I mean in terms of consequences, not effort.

[Empedocles]

No. In the final issue of 3.5 Dragon magazine, a CR 96 great wyrm time dragon was released.

Boom!

[Benly]

I love the idea that deities with 50 Int aren't going to figure out what's going on when a kobold gets Manipulate Form and starts granting itself arbitrary powers. Because presumably whichever player first noticed the Pun-Pun loop has more than 50 Int, I guess.

[Answerer]

No. In the final issue of 3.5 Dragon magazine, a CR 96 great wyrm time dragon was released.

Boom!
Defeatable.


I love the idea that deities with 50 Int aren't going to figure out what's going on when a kobold gets Manipulate Form and starts granting itself arbitrary powers. Because presumably whichever player first noticed the Pun-Pun loop has more than 50 Int, I guess.
Players also have access to resources that in-game deities would not, so a straight comparison of Int is not fair.

[Benly]

Players also have access to resources that in-game deities would not, so a straight comparison of Int is not fair.

It's true, there's all kinds of things that gods with epic ranks of all knowledges wouldn't know about. Like, um. That thing. And that other thing.

[Morithias]

I think the main thing we have to debate about is the gods themselves. Mostly because the time dragon could be defeated, assuming a string of horrible luck on the time dragon's side, and great luck on the character's side.

I'm talking nothing but 1's and 20's.

Gods have the power always roll 20 at greater levels, this removes the 'luck' factor.

[NoldorForce]

"Greater reaction"? Negating the Gate spell is a free action for Mystra. In case you missed it, FR has zero-sum divine power. Pun-Pun's ascension directly threatens the gods themselves.Zero-sum? Hardly. There are more gods in the world of 3.5 Faerun than there were at its creation, for a start. For instance, the World Serpent was originally one deity, but fragmented into several - and the resulting nine pieces (counting Shekinester's fragments) very likely have more divine ranks than twenty, the normal maximum for deities. Don't forget the Mulhorandi and Untheric deities either. If various native deities didn't want whole pantheons to show up and steal the pie, they'd have done something; the Imaskari were certainly mortal. And those are just the big examples; what about Azuth, Velsharoon, the Red Knight, or any other ascended mortal who wasn't just replacing someone?

Bottom line, this wouldn't threaten the deities any more than numerous events already have "threatened" them.
Guess what: they were. Have a read of Serpent Kingdoms, please.I've read the book. They weren't. Their empire only declined because their slaves rose up (for far more mundane reasons than gods); even they couldn't put down all the sarrukh.

[Eisenfavl]

As soon as a greater deity of scalykind pings a kobold using Manipulate Form to grant itself an arbitrarily powerful new ability every round, it's going to notice. Alternately, you could say "Pun-Pun becoming nigh-omnipotent" is a single event with bearing on the scalykind portfolio.

Saying that it's not going to ping Portfolio Sense because each individual step is insignificant is like saying that stabbing a god to death won't ping Portfolio Sense for relevant portfolios because, after all, it's just someone thrusting his arm forward over and over and there's nothing interesting about that.

*cough*
Correct usage of CoI is Clvl 17. It can gate in two Sarruks as one action. One gives him the aleax immunities. The other gives him manipulate form. Next round he does action-boosting chain abuse to ascend in one turn. Then he teleports far into the future beyond any portfolio sense.

Also, lets be serious, gating in a sarruk is the only counterable and obvious action. Fortunately, the sarruk we are gating in used to be vecna blooded.

[Benly]

*cough*
Correct usage of CoI is Clvl 17. It can gate in two Sarruks as one action. One gives him the aleax immunities. The other gives him manipulate form. Next round he does action-boosting chain abuse to ascend in one turn. Then he teleports far into the future beyond any portfolio sense.

Also, lets be serious, gating in a sarruk is the only counterable and obvious action. Fortunately, the sarruk we are gating in used to be vecna blooded.

The fact that he can do it in one turn doesn't matter, because his using Manipulate Form on himself, however many times he does it in one turn, is detected several weeks in advance. It doesn't have to be directly countered, because the god in question has months of forewarning during which to step on the non-ascended kobold.

[Pilo]

If these entities are willing to die and help the character to kill themself, yes, it is possible. But if they aren't, many entities can kill him/her before s/he becomes level 21 on purpose to prevent their own deaths.

[Alleran]

Which was precisely my point. That is the only thing "Lolth" ever did in retribution, and that was more of his mother's actions than Lolth's. If the gods are as quick to smiting impudent creatures as you suggest, what makes Drizzt so special?
IIRC, it was mentioned that Lolth backed the attack on Mithral Hall because she wanted to shake Menzoberranzan up a bit - it had become too docile. For that purpose, she didn't really care about Drizzt beyond the fact that he was one of the things stirring up trouble.

She certainly hated him, without a doubt (and planned that thing with Vierna in order to get either Drizzt or one of his companions to trade to Errtu as part of her scheming), but that's not the same thing as caring (not in the sense I'm trying to explain here and am probably failing at). Nor was she about to over-extend herself to blow him up with a thunderbolt (spider-bolt?). Mielikki took a fondness to Drizzt, so Lolth could be drawn into direct conflict with her if she started acting so brazenly.

And RE: Time Dragons, they have at-will time travel. Not the Teleport Through Time sort or Timereaver stuff, but straight up "this creature can time travel" wording. That alone could make them quite a hassle to defeat (not for Pun-Pun after his ascension, of course).

[JadePhoenix]

Also, lets be serious, gating in a sarruk is the only counterable and obvious action. Fortunately, the sarruk we are gating in used to be vecna blooded.

Vecna does not exist in FR.


Zero-sum? Hardly. There are more gods in the world of 3.5 Faerun than there were at its creation, for a start.
Each time a new god ascends, the other gods grow less powerful. That's why gods like Cyric kill other gods.


Bottom line, this wouldn't threaten the deities any more than numerous events already have "threatened" them.I've read the book.
Multiple events have threatened the deities. The deities themselves or their followers dealt with such events. As they would deal with Pun-Pun.


Which was precisely my point. That is the only thing "Lolth" ever did in retribution, and that was more of his mother's actions than Lolth's. If the gods are as quick to smiting impudent creatures as you suggest, what makes Drizzt so special?
Zin-carla is a gift from Lolth herself, it's direct divine intervention. I never aid a god would smite Pun-Pun of his own power, I said the gods would stop him. Using their followers is as good a way as any of doing it - and heck, Mystra could stop the whole thing as a free action, once again.


Right, in that Divine Power is determined by the number of worshipers etc etc as determined by Ao, formerly by the Tablets of Fate. I've never once seen the claim that Pun-pun aims to attract, destroy, or deny dieties their followers, and thus their "divine power" as granted remains unchanged. And by "greater" I mean in terms of consequences, not effort.
I could agree with this for some deities. Mystra wouldn't act if she thought Pun-Pun would simply be sitting there doing nothing. Cyric, on the other hand, would see his ascension as either a new enemy being created or as an opportunity to get even more power.
Even if we ignore Cyric, if Pun-Pun won't ever go against a god, he does not fill the requirements of the thread. He can't defeat something if he does not act against something.

[NoldorForce]

Honestly, we're wandering a bit from the goalposts originally in play.

First off, Pun-Pun is an example of theoretical optimization, or TO. He's not designed to see play by definition, so arguing about whether the gods of Faerun would allow him to ascend eventually becomes so much hot air and speculation. The original question wasn't about his in-play validity, but rather whether he or anyone else could "defeat any published entity". And Pun-Pun can, because the rules governing his ascension allow him to get infinite everything.

Second, arguing about the particular circumstances of that ascension got wacky because it's exposed significant inconsistencies and disconnects in the handling of FR throughout the years. Considering FR's breadth and the several editions through which it has lurched and been warped, those inconsistencies and disconnects were inevitable. But they're still there, and so we have questions like:
Will some deity detect the ascension and recognize it for what it is? (Answer: Depends on how broadly you interpret Portfolio Sense and how well you model inhumanly high intelligence.)
Will some deity actually quash Pun-Pun? (Answer: Depends on your interpretations of the god's personality and of worship in FR.)
If the sarrukh have this supremely broken power, why wasn't it quashed in some way or another by divine might years ago? (Answer: Nothing good here. The least bad answer is "the rules were literally different back then", but even that begs the question of why the sarrukh weren't hunted down by divine mandate as soon as 3E came to Faerun.)
Assuming that some deity has the capacities to detect and quash Pun-Pun, is there some way to bypass this whole mess? (Answer: Yes. Pun-Pun has to be native to FR but doesn't have to carry the plan out there, so he can just Plane Shift over through the Shadow Plane to somewhere else. Like Eberron, or the unnamed home of the Mulhorandi deities.)

[Answerer]

Honestly, we're wandering a bit from the goalposts originally in play.

First off, Pun-Pun is an example of theoretical optimization, or TO. He's not designed to see play by definition, so arguing about whether the gods of Faerun would allow him to ascend eventually becomes so much hot air and speculation. The original question wasn't about his in-play validity, but rather whether he or anyone else could "defeat any published entity". And Pun-Pun can, because the rules governing his ascension allow him to get infinite everything.
This was exactly my point, but I was told that
Pun-Pun's ascension is not the same as leveling up. That much is quite clear. Sorry, your argument holds no water.

In other words, I don't think JadePhoenix is really interested in the actual debate raised in the OP, and would rather just talk about how cool he thinks the FR gods are.

[JadePhoenix]

In other words, I don't think JadePhoenix is really interested in the actual debate raised in the OP, and would rather just talk about how cool he thinks the FR gods are.
First of all, I'd appreciate if you got my gender right.
You seem to have misunderstood me. If you consider actions that cna only be taken in-game as normal advancement, you can use artifacts, armies and plenty of other stuff. "My unplayed level 21 character befriended a kobold that did X" is not very different "My unplayed level 21 character did X".
Again, if Pun-Pun is kept as TO as supposed to, he is unbeatable. That's not the question in ths thread, though. The question is "can it defeat any published entity"? And the answer is no, unless you disregard said entities' abilities. Pun-Pun "ascending" is something that triggers defenses these entities have. As such, he can't defeat them.
It's very easy to twist your argument around. Couldn't I say "I don't think Answerer is really interested in the actual debate raised in the OP, and would rather just talk about how cool he thinks Pun-Pun is"? Because you're saying Pun-Pun can defeat X, but you are also ignoring X has an ability that prevent Pun-Pun from attaining his true power. Can you really say this isn't biased?

[Answerer]

I can say that I lost all interest in this thread a long time ago. I think you are wrong; you haven't convinced me in the slightest.

Pun-Pun is a trivial answer, and it was posted as such. The only reason to do so is to try to encourage some form of guidelines in the premise, since non-trivial answers to this question can probably still answer "yes", but the question needs to clarify what is and isn't valid – because if valid, Pun-Pun can always answer "Yes".

Whether or not Pun-Pun could successfully ascend in Faerun is not a question you can answer by the rules. Even your own posting has largely been about how various fictional characters would respond to a series of hypothetical actions. There are no rules that state unequivocally how any given god would respond to any action of Pun-Pun's. The Salient abilities are vague and amount to little more than codified DM fiat, and as such offer little assistance.

So there's not really much of a 'debate' left, and so I've lost interest. My post was, as I also believe NoldorForce's was, intended to ground the thread in something objective that we could actually have a debate about, but as with my previous attempt at this, you've shot it down because... I don't know why and I'm not going to attempt to guess your motives. Point is, you did, and I have little interest in the direction you've commandeered this thread.

[JadePhoenix]

Honestly, we're wandering a bit from the goalposts originally in play.
I agree completely.


First off, Pun-Pun is an example of theoretical optimization, or TO.
I've been saying this for quite a while now. :smalltongue:

He's not designed to see play by definition, so arguing about whether the gods of Faerun would allow him to ascend eventually becomes so much hot air and speculation. The original question wasn't about his in-play validity, but rather whether he or anyone else could "defeat any published entity". And Pun-Pun can, because the rules governing his ascension allow him to get infinite everything.
But this disregards the abilities of said entities to avoid his ascencion, don't you agree?


Second, arguing about the particular circumstances of that ascension got wacky because it's exposed significant inconsistencies and disconnects in the handling of FR throughout the years. Considering FR's breadth and the several editions through which it has lurched and been warped, those inconsistencies and disconnects were inevitable.
I agree.

But they're still there, and so we have questions like:
Will some deity detect the ascension and recognize it for what it is? (Answer: Depends on how broadly you interpret Portfolio Sense and how well you model inhumanly high intelligence.)
Agreed.

Will some deity actually quash Pun-Pun? (Answer: Depends on your interpretations of the god's personality and of worship in FR.)
Agreed.

If the sarrukh have this supremely broken power, why wasn't it quashed in some way or another by divine might years ago? (Answer: Nothing good here. The least bad answer is "the rules were literally different back then", but even that begs the question of why the sarrukh weren't hunted down by divine mandate as soon as 3E came to Faerun.)
Well, there are very few sarrukh left...

Assuming that some deity has the capacities to detect and quash Pun-Pun, is there some way to bypass this whole mess? (Answer: Yes. Pun-Pun has to be native to FR but doesn't have to carry the plan out there, so he can just Plane Shift over through the Shadow Plane to somewhere else. Like Eberron, or the unnamed home of the Mulhorandi deities.)[/list]
I disagree here. Unless you consider portfolio sense gives so little information it borders on uselessness, the deities would know what they would do weeks before he had the idea to do so. Remember, this is trickery and deceit - it falls straight into Cyric's portfolio.

[Talakeal]

Ok, so it is "out of bounds" for anyone to stop pun-puns ascension even though they obviously would for IC reasons.

By that logic, would it also be viable to say "My character walks the world and collects all gold and magic items, therefore has infinite WBL"? After all, the only thing standing between you and near infinite WBL is the current owners of all that wealth stopping you, which it out of bounds for this discussion.

For that matter, why not assume that you have already gotten "any published entity" down to -9 HP and helpless and unconscious before the start of the match, because it is unfair for NPCs to stop your schemes before the match starts.

[NoldorForce]

First off, Pun-Pun is an example of theoretical optimization, or TO.I've been saying this for quite a while now. :smalltongue:
He's not designed to see play by definition, so arguing about whether the gods of Faerun would allow him to ascend eventually becomes so much hot air and speculation. The original question wasn't about his in-play validity, but rather whether he or anyone else could "defeat any published entity". And Pun-Pun can, because the rules governing his ascension allow him to get infinite everything.But this disregards the abilities of said entities to avoid his ascencion, don't you agree?Er, see above (those two nested quotes are part of the same paragraph) as to why this is irrelevant.

Several points about ambiguity and subjectivityAgreed.
Point about worst-case scenarioI disagree here. Unless you consider portfolio sense gives so little information it borders on uselessness, the deities would know what they would do weeks before he had the idea to do so. Remember, this is trickery and deceit - it falls straight into Cyric's portfolio.Is it really trickery and deceit? And is planning on its own an "event"? (If so, with enough comparison between aligned gods this is equivalent to mind-reading on a massive scale.)

See, we're just ending up with more questions that are fundamentally unanswerable. Not only that, but the liberal arguments to some of them can lead to other, unsettling conclusions about the game and the metaplot. The bottom line is that determining whether Pun-Pun could ascend under a "normal" DM is most comparable to a discussion on whether the universe is materialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism) or idealist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism). We could debate it for the rest of our lives and never come to a satisfactory conclusion.

And that's all completely irrelevant to the discussion. As formulated Pun-Pun constitutes a "yes" button to everything. If you're really going to split hairs then I'd say that the whole ascension process is (assuming a permissive DM, which is valid in TO) an acceptable part of constructing an optimized character. Comparing this to gaining artifacts only obfuscates things. (There are no rules for gaining artifacts besides PLOT!; not so this.)

As noted by Answerer, the follow-up question to the answer of "Pun-Pun constitutes a 'yes' button to everything" should be, "how should this challenge be restricted so as to disallow Pun-Pun but still allow some other character to succeed?" Or possibly, "what restrictions are necessary and sufficient to prevent characters from success?" And honestly, those are more interesting questions than arguing about whether deity A would detect event B through method C and therefore take action D.

[NoldorForce]

Ok, so it is "out of bounds" for anyone to stop pun-puns ascension even though they obviously would for IC reasons.

By that logic, would it also be viable to say "My character walks the world and collects all gold and magic items, therefore has infinite WBL"? After all, the only thing standing between you and near infinite WBL is the current owners of all that wealth stopping you, which it out of bounds for this discussion.

For that matter, why not assume that you have already gotten "any published entity" down to -9 HP and helpless and unconscious before the start of the match, because it is unfair for NPCs to stop your schemes before the match starts.You're tossing a strawman at the argument. This discussion is TO ("highly optimized") and thus there's no reason anyone "obviously"* would do something unless otherwise stated. As above, whether the gods would stop the ascension or not is vague and unanswerable; there's nothing obvious about it. Getting infinite WBL is out-of-bounds partly due to the rules of character building (ie, stick by WBL) and partly due to the fact that the given method of gaining it is vague and undefined. (Possibly impossible, does the world actually have infinite wealth?) And assuming "down to -9 HP and helpless and unconscious" is inappropriate as full health is a baseline for any creature.

In contrast, Pun-Pun's ascension is a surefire, deterministic, RAW method of character construction. The single loosest step within it is bargaining with Pazuzu, and even that is still certain to succeed under the standard "permissive DM". (Check FC1, pages 76-77, for details.)

*My background's in mathematics, so using "obviously" in an argument tends to make me skeptical of it.

[Talakeal]

You're tossing a strawman at the argument. This discussion is TO ("highly optimized") and thus there's no reason anyone "obviously"* would do something unless otherwise stated. As above, whether the gods would stop the ascension or not is vague and unanswerable; there's nothing obvious about it. Getting infinite WBL is out-of-bounds partly due to the rules of character building (ie, stick by WBL) and partly due to the fact that the given method of gaining it is vague and undefined. (Possibly impossible, does the world actually have infinite wealth?) And assuming "down to -9 HP and helpless and unconscious" is inappropriate as full health is a baseline for any creature.

In contrast, Pun-Pun's ascension is a surefire, deterministic, RAW method of character construction. The single loosest step within it is bargaining with Pazuzu, and even that is still certain to succeed under the standard "permissive DM". (Check FC1, pages 76-77, for details.)

*My background's in mathematics, so using "obviously" in an argument tends to make me skeptical of it.

If my examples look like a straw man it is because I didn't get my point across.

My point was that Pun-Pun is not simply a build. It is a series of actions which must be taken in character.

Further these actions requires at least two other beings (Pazuzu and the Sarrukh). It also requires the deities (and every other powerful being with a vested interest in stopping him) to stand aside and allow the ascension to go off.

My question was, why do you allow the character to perform one series of improbably actions with no opposition before the start of the game, but not others?

Stealing all the wealth in the world is not part of my characters "build", it is an action he performed before the game started. Likewise my opponent being helpless and dying is not part of his "build", it is the result of a series of actions I took against him before the start of the game.

Edit: And I said virtually infinite wealth, not truly infinite. Obviously the world does not contain infinite levels of wealth, but it certainly contains enough for a character to own a slotless version of every magic item ever published and a hand full of artifacts.

[ngilop]

Cthulu


he has published stats in some d20 book (maybe even Cthulu d20) is like CR 74 or some such....

[Answerer]

Attaining any level above your RHD requires some form of previous action, though. So does buying or otherwise acquiring your wealth by level. Etc. etc.

So where do you draw the line?

Again, the point of Pun-Pun as an answer is that he is the trivial answer to all "Can a character do X?" questions. The point is to try to establish some sort of framework about which a discussion can actually occur.

So again, where do you draw the line?

[tyckspoon]

Further these actions requires at least two other beings (Pazuzu and the Sarrukh).

The Pazuzu method is merely the result of the race to find the fastest ascension method- the potential for Pun-Pun was originally noticed by somebody who went "Hey, Shapechange gives you Supernatural abilities. What kind of shenanigans can we get up to with this Manipulate Form thing?" Anything that lets you A: turn into a Sarrukh and B: use one of its Supernatural abilities is a potential route to Pun-Pun ascension.

(As a side note, I kind of wish Pun-Pun had managed to disappear from common knowledge. He always gets brought into these discussions and completely sidetracks everything. Yes, he's that powerful. Yes, regardless of how you feel about the level 1 Pazuzu-summoning method there are perfectly and unambiguously RAW-compatible methods of becoming Pun-Pun. Can we all get over this and have discussions about actually interesting topics now?)

[Talakeal]

As a side note, I kind of wish Pun-Pun had managed to disappear from common knowledge. He always gets brought into these discussions and completely sidetracks everything. Yes, he's that powerful. Yes, regardless of how you feel about the level 1 Pazuzu-summoning method there are perfectly and unambiguously RAW-compatible methods of becoming Pun-Pun. Can we all get over this and have discussions about actually interesting topics now?)

Yeah, I feel the same way. I really wish pun-pun didn't get dragged into every single discussion about optimization or the limits of character power, and people act like pun-pun is a core staple of D&D rather than an obscure and debatably legal loophole.
On a different forum I remember an interesting discussion about who was stronger, a D&D wizard or a WoD mage. At least, it was an interesting discussion until several people started insisting "every competent D&D wizard will be a pun-pun clone" and kind of drowned out the entire debate.

[candycorn]

To further muddy the waters, using a dragon frame, it's possible to build pun pun as an enemy, since feat and spell selection are open. Assuming that specific actions must be taken at the start of play, and builds do not accompany them, then ascending is something that must happen in play.

This is because "I did this at level 1" is not a build choice. It's an action choice.

Now, we've got dragons that can ascend equally fast to the optimized character.

This means that both sides have access to pun pun, and are equally proficient at pulling it off.

Knowing this, can we can (and should) eliminate the zero sum option that is pun pun. Else the claim "I did this at level 1" can be countered with "and the great wyrm force dragon did it when he was a wyrmling", and nobody ever wins.

[Aegis013]

About the actions not being part of character builds... what about using the 3,000 gp to "purchase" an Otyugh Hole's benefit? Is that an action therefore shouldn't be allowed in expenditure of WBL during character creation for a theoretical character for a thought exercise? You can't actually purchase it based on the description, it's an event the character must have gone through.

I'm in agreement with the party saying "There simply needs to be more, and clearly defined, guidelines for this thought exercise."

[candycorn]

About the actions not being part of character builds... what about using the 3,000 gp to "purchase" an Otyugh Hole's benefit? Is that an action therefore shouldn't be allowed in expenditure of WBL during character creation for a theoretical character for a thought exercise? You can't actually purchase it based on the description, it's an event the character must have gone through.

I'm in agreement with the party saying "There simply needs to be more, and clearly defined, guidelines for this thought exercise."

In that case, no character can beat a time dragon, who time travels to the beginning of time, brings a sarrukh with him, and ascends. This is easily enough statted up as a published entity.

In other words, anything a PC can do, a dragon can do better.

[Aegis013]

In that case, no character can beat a time dragon, who time travels to the beginning of time, brings a sarrukh with him, and ascends. This is easily enough statted up as a published entity.

In other words, anything a PC can do, a dragon can do better.

I'm not disagreeing with you. I was actually just posing the question to say that more guidelines are necessary for this thought exercise, in my opinion.

[Answerer]

Probably, but the point isn't to start trying to play with Pun-Pun methinks, the point is to establish rules that limit the situation so that Pun-Pun is (unambiguously) an invalid answer so that actual discussion can take place.

A simple "without infinite loops" in the OP would have been sufficient to allow discussion to take place, though in all likelihood then the answer is probably no. Maybe some crazy Epic Spell mitigation is possible.

[candycorn]

Assuming a "build" is a referenced combination of race, character classes, benefits afforded a character due to those race and class selection, and expenditure of wealth by level for benefits afforded to a character, in accordance with character level.

What it is not is "specific actions taken prior to level 21, excepting that those actions be explicitly required for a feat, prestige class, or the like."

Follow up with, "assume all entities are completely hostile to the level 21 character, and barring explicit binding compulsion on the part of the level 21 character, will attempt to kill them immediately. This supercedes any attitude or proclivity normally attributed to said entity".

The first ensures pun pun cannot be created prior to the start of the challenge.

The second ensures that calling Pazuzu will result in Pazuzu immediately attempting to kill the character.

[Answerer]

Also pushes the challenge from "any published entity" to "every published entity, potentially at the same time" which is a mite different.

I'm usually reluctant to say that RAW shenanigans cannot be found to accomplish something, even barring Pun-Pun, but... this may be a case where it is.

[tyckspoon]

I'm usually reluctant to say that RAW shenanigans cannot be found to accomplish something, even barring Pun-Pun, but... this may be a case where it is.

Well, with the restriction to only level 21, there are 2 ways I know of to reliably take on absolutely everything: Be Pun-Pun, or nigh-infinite mitigation Epic Spells. Assuming both of those are out as being excessively cheesy, then yes, there are definite limits to what you can achieve at level 21. Appropriate optimization will let you take on any reasonable and most unreasonable encounters, but when you're talking 'any published entity' and including Epic Dragons in that, you're well past merely unreasonable and well into staggeringly excessive.

[NoldorForce]

Ice Assassin generally works wonders in these circumstances. Though to be fair it's not actually you doing the legwork of killing a target, but instead your pet clone of some deity. Like Mystra, or Boccob (both of whom have Alter Reality).

[candycorn]

Also pushes the challenge from "any published entity" to "every published entity, potentially at the same time" which is a mite different.

I'm usually reluctant to say that RAW shenanigans cannot be found to accomplish something, even barring Pun-Pun, but... this may be a case where it is.

In that case, then we should amend the challenge to, "any entity, in the following environment: each and every entity other than the level 21 character (and creatures explicitly granted it via class feature) and the entity it is combatting (and creatures granted it via published statblock), do not exist."

There. Unless you're fighting Pazuzu, there is no Pazuzu. Unless you're fighting a Sarrukh, there is no Sarrukh. Therefore, there is no circumstance that will result in pun pun being possible.

It also means that, since we are removing the possibility of gangs in the Opposition Force, we remove the same from the Allied Force. In other words, the character must be able to accomplish defeating the published entities singlehandedly, and solely using his own capabilities.

[Acanous]

It's specifically said that deific power can largely ignore mortal magic, including AMF. Also, if you're in an AMF, rings of evasion and mettle don't work, nor does about 99% of save boosting stuff, or other buff effects. Also, if you activate AMF, all the creature has to do is avoid you for 10 minutes per level, then engage. The above dragon? Could stay 200 feet away easily, waiting your buff out.

In addition, the brass dragon above could crush it. Easy Metamagic, Arcane Thesis (Orb of Acid), Improved Metamagic x2, Epic Spellcasting, Enhance Spell, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell, Energy Admixture, Twin Spell.

Spellsurge an:
Enhanced Maximized Empowered Twinned Admixture (electricity) Orb of Acid.

15d6 Acid + 15d6 electricity
Enhanced: 25d6 Acid + 25d6 electricity
Maximized: 150 Acid + 150 Electricity
Empowered: +43.75 Acid + 43.75 Electricity
Twin Spell: +193.75 Acid + 193.75 Electricity

Total: 387.5 Acid + 387.5 Electricity
No save, range touch, not suppressed in AMF... And that's not even really trying.

Alternately, use spells to get to a +120 UMD, then UMD a staff of Disjunction at CL 100, granting a 100% chance to crush the AMF.

Edit: Or look at Force dragon.
78 ranks for the casting.
+104 spellcraft, assuming no buffs, just ranks. (boostable, easily, to +160 or higher)
Casts as a Level 36 caster
26 Feats. Yeah, that many.
Brutal attack and damage bonuses, and easy access to pounce.

Optimized to the same level as a 21st level character, that character has almost no chance.

And Prismatic Dragon is worse.

The entire reason you want AMF is in case of Force Cage. You don't keep it on.
It's specifically stated in Divine Denial that it ignores 100% of deific power, if you make the save- that it gives you.

Edit: And that's assuming the dragon goes first. The barbarian has a higher dex, and could concievably pick up improved initiative. He's going first, dragon's going to die.

Edit: and none of that "Dragon starts 200 feet in the air" BS. I specified Raptorian. If it starts in the air, so does the barbarian.

[candycorn]

The entire reason you want AMF is in case of Force Cage. You don't keep it on.
It's specifically stated in Divine Denial that it ignores 100% of deific power, if you make the save- that it gives you.

Edit: And that's assuming the dragon goes first. The barbarian has a higher dex, and could concievably pick up improved initiative. He's going first, dragon's going to die.

Edit: and none of that "Dragon starts 200 feet in the air" BS. I specified Raptorian. If it starts in the air, so does the barbarian.

No, but any of those dragons is likely to start under Mind Blank and Persisted Superior Invisibility. It'll likely also have Celerity, and Disjunction, as well as the 9th slots to throw on Foresight 24/7. Start at any distance from 10 feet to whatever. You won't see it at the start of a turn, and thus, you won't charge it. It will go first, regardless of whether your initiative is +1 or +1,000,000. During that first turn, Quickened Disjunction is easy enough, or perhaps a quickened maximized empowered admixture twin spell chain lightning, targeted at all your gear (gear may use your save, but it doesn't use your class features and such, so no evasion for it). Or Quickened Chain Greater Dispel Magic, augmented to neuter every item for 1d4 rounds, followed by that chain lightning.

These things are cake. Bush league amateur stuff, in the realm of "highly optimized". And they'll destroy anything that is reliant on so much as one piece of gear, or one magical buff.

[Acanous]

if it's starting with persisted superior invisibility, there's lenses of true seeing.
Seriously, you don't need to spend on a magic weapon, so you can sink all your WBL into saves and countering magic defenses. Invisibility is bush league, you're right. Everyone and their dog can bypass it.

[lord_khaine]

Edit: And that's assuming the dragon goes first. The barbarian has a higher dex, and could concievably pick up improved initiative. He's going first, dragon's going to die.

Edit: and none of that "Dragon starts 200 feet in the air" BS. I specified Raptorian. If it starts in the air, so does the barbarian.

Apperently we are talking about some sort of charger build?

In that case, whats there to stop the dragon from simply using its greater reach, and/or a feat like hold the line to trip the barbarian up, and ruin his charge?

[Acanous]

are there any published dragons with those feats?
The challenge does specify published.

I do wonder how reach/trip works with someone using Leap Attack now, though. Can you trip someone who is jumping? o.0

[Bogardan_Mage]

are there any published dragons with those feats?
The challenge does specify published.
The MM dragons leave their feats to DM discretion. Does that count as "published"? It could certainly be argued.

[JadePhoenix]

Is it really trickery and deceit? And is planning on its own an "event"? (If so, with enough comparison between aligned gods this is equivalent to mind-reading on a massive scale.)
Even if planning on it's own is not an event, the deceit itself is, and Cyric knows it 17-20 weeks before the deceit is done.


See, we're just ending up with more questions that are fundamentally unanswerable.
I disagree completely. Deceit is part of Cyric's portfolio, he senses any event related to deceit weeks before it happens. Unless you're trying to argue that teleporting to a different plane to avoid trouble with portfolio sense is not deceit, I really don't see a case or any unanswearable question here.

Not only that, but the liberal arguments to some of them can lead to other, unsettling conclusions about the game and the metaplot. The bottom line is that determining whether Pun-Pun could ascend under a "normal" DM is most comparable to a discussion on whether the universe is materialist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism) or idealist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealism). We could debate it for the rest of our lives and never come to a satisfactory conclusion.
But this is not the point. The point is you have entities capable of stopping Pun-Pun's ascension and in order to have him defeat them, they would have to be very stupid.
I think I'm not getting my point across. The question is "Can Pun-Pun defeat any published entity?". Compare it with a balor. He can. Compare it with a hecatonchires. He can. Compare it with a time dragon. He can. Compare it with Cyric... he can't, because Cyric would detect his actions to ascend. "Pun-Pun just wants power" doesn't make sense, because to fit within this thread, Pun-Pun must challenge Cyric and he won't be able to do that because Cyric wouldn't allow him to get to that point. Cyric allowing Pun-Pun to ascend is like your fighter allowing a wizard to pre-buff before you fight. It's not a matter of what he would or wouldn't do (though it is IC for him to destroy Pun-Pun anyway), it's a matter of him using the abilities he has in the best way possible. So the answer to "Can Pun-Pun defeat Cyric?" is "No, unless Cyric is played in a non-optimal way".
Of course this becomes subjective - this is about "who beats who". It can't be completely objective. But in this case, well, it's pretty easy.


And that's all completely irrelevant to the discussion. As formulated Pun-Pun constitutes a "yes" button to everything.
Yes, but as formulated Pun-Pun does not fight anything. And the thread requires Pun-Pun to fight, so others' actions make a difference.

If you're really going to split hairs then I'd say that the whole ascension process is (assuming a permissive DM, which is valid in TO) an acceptable part of constructing an optimized character. Comparing this to gaining artifacts only obfuscates things. (There are no rules for gaining artifacts besides PLOT!; not so this.)
You misunderstand. Ascension is an action Pun-Pun takes. If Pun-Pun is going against the gods (and in this thread he is), the gods' actions matter as much as his.
If you disconsider the gods' defenses, you're basically saying "I win if he doesn't do x". Which is a perfectly acceptable answer and actually happens a lot in games. But in this thread, where you need to have Pun-Pun actually becoming a godslayer to fit in the OP's requirements, I don't think it can be done. You could use a different way (maybe using Vecna-blooded?) but it can't be Pun-Pun, because it's FR only and there is no Vecna in FR.


As noted by Answerer, the follow-up question to the answer of "Pun-Pun constitutes a 'yes' button to everything" should be, "how should this challenge be restricted so as to disallow Pun-Pun but still allow some other character to succeed?" Or possibly, "what restrictions are necessary and sufficient to prevent characters from success?"
That's where you seem be a bit lost. Pun-Pun is a "yes" answer to "can I get ability X?" and "can I be the most powerful?"... because it depends on him only (if you don't use the Pazuzu mode, at least). It is not a "yes" answer to "can I beat everything" specifically because of the gods. That's where the "Pun-Pun just wants power for power's sake" thing came from, because otherwise he'd be stepping in the gods' toes and wouldn't be able to ascend.


And honestly, those are more interesting questions than arguing about whether deity A would detect event B through method C and therefore take action D.
Sorry, but that is not what I am saying. I'm giving you a punctual question - "how can Pun-Pun avoid Cyric's portfolio sense if he needs to kill Cyric to fullfill the thread's requirements ?".
If you don't think answering the thread's question is interesting, well, I'm confused.

[NoldorForce]

In that case, then we should amend the challenge to, "any entity, in the following environment: each and every entity other than the level 21 character (and creatures explicitly granted it via class feature) and the entity it is combatting (and creatures granted it via published statblock), do not exist."

There. Unless you're fighting Pazuzu, there is no Pazuzu. Unless you're fighting a Sarrukh, there is no Sarrukh. Therefore, there is no circumstance that will result in pun pun being possible.

It also means that, since we are removing the possibility of gangs in the Opposition Force, we remove the same from the Allied Force. In other words, the character must be able to accomplish defeating the published entities singlehandedly, and solely using his own capabilities.I'd say that simply banning the sarrukh is better here; not only is it a more elegant phrasing but it also prevents the loophole of a wizard working out the whole sequence with Shapechange and a familiar.

[Answerer]

In that case, then we should amend the challenge to, "any entity, in the following environment: each and every entity other than the level 21 character (and creatures explicitly granted it via class feature) and the entity it is combatting (and creatures granted it via published statblock), do not exist."

There. Unless you're fighting Pazuzu, there is no Pazuzu. Unless you're fighting a Sarrukh, there is no Sarrukh. Therefore, there is no circumstance that will result in pun pun being possible.

It also means that, since we are removing the possibility of gangs in the Opposition Force, we remove the same from the Allied Force. In other words, the character must be able to accomplish defeating the published entities singlehandedly, and solely using his own capabilities.
This is a very good framework to work under. Bravo.

[Rubik]

This is a very good framework to work under. Bravo.Except it also kills a huge number of abilities any highly-optimized character would have, such as summons, Planar Binding, familiars, other companions, and half of necromancy.

And if there are no other creatures anywhere, then you couldn't be a cleric (no gods), or even have magic items (since the existence of gods of magic are frequently considered the source thereof).

Depends on what the setting is, and the houserules in play, but it's still a case of "let's cut off all of these abilities that are RAW available".

[NoldorForce]

I'd say that most if not of those fall under "creatures explicitly granted it via class feature".

[Answerer]

Yeah, that's how I felt about it. I read it as just not being able to rely on any creature aside from yourself (and creatures you can create/call/etc. by class features). I mean... hmm, yeah, that doesn't really help because of Shapechange with familiars.

Shrug. Yeah, I guess just ban the Sarrukh.

[toapat]

And if there are no other creatures anywhere, then you couldn't be a cleric (no gods), or even have magic items (since the existence of gods of magic are frequently considered the source thereof).

Clerics dont need dieties to be able to cast spells, the only effect on being an aetheist cleric is the inability to take a small number of the prestieges that having a diety allows you to qualify for if non-drow

[Rubik]

I say just ban Manipulate Form. Nothing wrong with the race beyond that (and it's quite useful otherwise, I say).

[Talakeal]

I see the Sarrukh's manipulate form as a White Wolf style power.

In the old world of darkness most of the powers didn't have specific rules. Most didn't mention casting times, ranges, if you needed to roll to hit, if counter magic, dodge, or willpower applied to resistance, V/S/M components, if LoS was required, etc. Many didn't even have mechanical rules for what happened to the target, and in the case of mage most don't even tell you how many successes are required.

It was assumed that the Storyteller would use such powers as plot devices, and thus the authors (apparently) didn't feel that they needed to write any specifics.

The sarrukh's power looks incredibly open ended, because the author never considered that a player would become a Sarrukh or have a Sarrukh minion.
The intent was clear, to me at least, to allow a DM to stock a Sarrukh's lair with all sorts of weird mutated minions with unpredictable powers, and as such a "plot device" power works just fine. But when actually used by a player to "win D&D" you really need the DM to put his foot down and apply some rules and restrictions to the power.

Also, even if you are going by RAW, doesn't Pun-Pun take some liberties with the Sarrukh's power? Like assuming you can grant abilities which are made up on the spot, and violating the normal rules for having multiple instances of the same SU effect up at one?

[TheGeckoKing]

My one problem with "The Sarrukh was meant to be mainly a plot device" is that they gave it an LA (admittedly it has an ECL of 22, but still...). This implies in some twisted sense that players were meant to get access to Manipulate Form.

[candycorn]

are there any published dragons with those feats?
The challenge does specify published.

I do wonder how reach/trip works with someone using Leap Attack now, though. Can you trip someone who is jumping? o.0

Every dragon statblock includes that each dragon has a number of feats and spells selected as part of its entry.

I can see arguing against templating one, or providing Loredrake to one, but a dragon's spells and feats are explicitly selected on a case-by-case basis, by its published entry.

As for the trip thing? No rule says you can't trip a jumper. By RAW, you're still using your land speed when jumping, and no RAW exempts you from the penalties for being tripped. That said, Stand Still is very solid here.