Potential Pun-Pun Problem

[rweird]

I may have discovered a problem with Pun-Pun, reading the manipulate form ability, it says something that may make it so Pun-Pun isn't quite as powerful, he still can get powerful, though his NI abilities need to be gained in some other way.

From the thread Pun-Pun is on (Fixed some spelling things):

At will, a sarrukh can modify the form of any Scaled One native to Toril, except for aquatic and undead creatures. With a successful touch attack, it can cause one alteration of its choice in the target creature's body. The target falls unconscious for 2d4 rounds due to the shock of changing form. A successful DC 22 Fortitude save negates both the change and the unconsciousness. Sarrukh are immune to this effect. A sarrukh may use this ability to change a minor aspect of the target creature, such as the shape of its head or the color of its scales. It may also choose to make a much more significant alteration, such as converting limbs into tentacles, changing the overall body shape (snake to humanoid, for example), or adding or removing an appendage. Any ability score may be decreased to a minimum of 1 or increased to a maximum equal to the sarrukh's corresponding score. A sarrukh may also grant the target an extraordinary, supernatural, or spell-like ability or remove one from it. The change bestowed takes effect immediately and is permanant. Furthermore, the alterations are automatically passed on to all the creature's offspring when it breeds with another of its unmodified kind.

Bolded relevant parts.

The way pun-pun raises his ability scores involves using Manipulate Form to get his familiar to get his abilities, and then the reverse. The Manipulate Form ability can't give make a ability higher than the sarrukh's corresponding score, and sarrukh are immune to the effect. This means to possible things. 1) Pun-Pun can only get his abilities as high as he can get a sarrukh's is, meaning that he'll need a way to give it infinite abilities (Epic Spellcasting enhance seed+Omnificer loop for +∞ enhancement bonus to the sarrukh's abilities and then convert that to Pun-Pun), or 2) for this, it replaces surrukh with Pun-Pun in all cases, meaning he'd be immune to the ability meaning he couldn't use any cheese with it himself, and needs to get another individual in the loop that actually has manipulate form to grant Pun-Pun his power and he can't do it himself.

This might be interpreted wrong and it works, though this occurred to me and I decided to submit it to the playground to see if it works.

[Xervous]

This situation is quite similar to ones in many other games where X gains Y's ability. The most common interpretation is to replace all instances of Y with X in the power / ability's description. So you are perfectly correct on the second point, which brings up the question of whether "Sarrukh" being immune to manipulate form would make "Pun-Pun" immune as well...

[Answerer]

The entire "trick" to Pun-pun is getting around those two clauses. Pun-pun involves more than just shapechange into Sarrukh, win game.

[rweird]

The entire "trick" to Pun-pun is getting around those two clauses. Pun-pun involves more than just shapechange into Sarrukh, win game.

I know, he grants himself the manipulate form ability of a Sarrukh to get a bunch of abilities. He summons a Sarrukh, and gets the Sarrukh's Manipulate Form from Manipulate Form, my two interpretations are of what happens due to how manipulate form is worded, though if you use extreme cheese (making your own abilities), you could have the Sarrukh give him a version that doesn't knock him out, with no ability limitations, and no self immunity.

[Answerer]

The original build involved Share Spells on your Familiar so the two of you could Manipulate Form each other. This basically meant you could stack any bonuses you have with themselves. Not sure about later developments, but I think Obtain Familiar remains an important part for non-Wizard versions.

[rweird]

The original build involved Share Spells on your Familiar so the two of you could Manipulate Form each other. This basically meant you could stack any bonuses you have with themselves. Not sure about later developments, but I think Obtain Familiar remains an important part for non-Wizard versions.

True, though if you both have manipulate form, then by my second interpretation you couldn't manipulate form yourself, or have anyone use manipulate form on you, regardless.

[toapat]

True, though if you both have manipulate form, then by my second interpretation you couldn't manipulate form yourself, or have anyone use manipulate form on you, regardless.

I think its because when they do that, Pun-pun is granted Manipulate Form (Pun-Pun edition), while his Familiar is granted Manipulate Form (Mopar Edition), and so in order:

Grant eachother Immunity to Sleep
Grant Pun-Pun his boosting and dismissal SLA
Loop for a decade

[rweird]

I think its because when they do that, Pun-pun is granted Manipulate Form (Pun-Pun edition), while his Familiar is granted Manipulate Form (Mopar Edition), and so in order:

Grant eachother Immunity to Sleep
Grant Pun-Pun his boosting and dismissal SLA
Loop for a decade

So it pretty much is overcame by giving Pun-Pun a ability that doesn't exist from manipulate form to overcome it? I presume Pun-Pun edition removes the limitations (though if it does that, why not get rid of the knockout effect while your at it), though I'm not sure what Mopar is.

[toapat]

So it pretty much is overcame by giving Pun-Pun a ability that doesn't exist from manipulate form to overcome it? I presume Pun-Pun edition removes the limitations (though if it does that, why not get rid of the knockout effect while your at it), though I'm not sure what Mopar is.

It doesnt change the limitations of Manipulate form, it just changes it from being No to Sarrukh to No to Kobolds. The specific ability is not changed in wording. The creation of Manipulate Form (Kobold) changes Manipulate form to Manipulate form (Sarrukh). the Viper gets Manipulate Form (Viper). As a result, you change it just enough without changing it to grant the ability to use it on someone who has a different instance of Manipulate form. The very Precise wording of Manipulate form as a result is what allows this loophole.

the Immunity to unconciousness is simply because you damn well want to be doing this more then once a minute

[rweird]

It doesn't change the limitations of Manipulate form, it just changes it from being No to Sarrukh to No to Kobolds. The specific ability is not changed in wording. The creation of Manipulate Form (Kobold) changes Manipulate form to Manipulate form (Sarrukh). the Viper gets Manipulate Form (Viper). As a result, you change it just enough without changing it to grant the ability to use it on someone who has a different instance of Manipulate form. The very Precise wording of Manipulate form as a result is what allows this loophole.

the Immunity to unconciousness is simply because you damn well want to be doing this more then once a minute

It says: "Sarrukh are immune to this effect" this effect is referring to Manipulate Form, I see your reasoning, that works, I think, though someone else on the playground may have a counterpoint.

[Rogue Shadows]

Pay close attention (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869366/The_most_powerful_character._EVER.).

The way that Pun-pun works is that he changes into a Sarrukh, does crazy stuff to his viper familiar, then his viper familiar is changed into a Sarrukh while Pun-Pun changes back into a kobold. The two basically play a game of leapfrog.

Relavent to Strength:


Ability Scores: Pun-Pun grants himeslf the Wu-Jen spell Giant Size as a spell-like ability at-will. He casts it on his familiar through the Share Spells ability. This increases the viper to colossal size, granting the viper a +32 size bonus to strength. For the average tiny viper, that means his sterngth score went from 4 to 36. Using the Manipulate Form ability, the viper then increases Pun-Pun's strength score permanently, up to a maximum of 36 (the viper's own strength score). This is not a size bonus to strength. The viper is using the ability of Manipulate Form to increase and decrease a creature's ability score. No bonus is being given. Pun-Pun's base strength score, with no bonuses of any sort, is now 36. Pun-Pun dismisses the spell effect on the familiar and it goes back down to tiny size. The familiar's strength score goes back to 4. Pun-Pun uses Giant Size on himself, growing to colossal size and gaining a +32 size bonus to strength. His strength score is now 68. Pun-Pun uses the Manipulate Form ability to directly increase his familiar's strength score up to 68. Again, this isn't a size bonus that he is giving the familiar, he is actually increasing the base score to match his own. Pun-Pun dismisses his Giant Size effect, and he goes back to a small size with strength 36. The viper is still tiny size, with strength 68 now...

It goes on for some time, but the point is that Strength can be made arbitrarily high using this method. The author settled on having a bonus of +10,000.

And for the other abilities:


To increase his other scores, Pun-Pun needs two abilities. The first one is the Bellflower Tattoo of the Tattooed Monk (Complete Warrior). This ability allows Pun-Pun to add his charisma modifier as an enhancement bonus to any one of his ability scores. The second ability is the Void Release ability of the Void Disciple (Complete Divine). This will allow Pun-Pun to use his highest ability score modifier in place of a lower one. Pun-Pun uses his Bellflower Tattoo to add his charisma score as an enhancement bonus to dexterity. But instead of adding his charisma bonus, he uses Void Release to add his strength bonus. His strength bonus is +10,000. So, Pun-Pun's dexterity score is now 10,000. He then uses Manipulate Form to increase his familiar's dexterity up to 10,000 as well (remember, he isn't giving his familiar a bonus to dexterity, he is literally changing his familiar's base dexterity score to match his own). Pun-Pun then dismisses the Bellflower effect, and his dexterity goes back down to normal. The viper then uses Manipulate Form to increase Pun-Pun's dexterity score up to 10,000. This time, it isn't an enhancement bonus, the familiar is using Manipulate Form to permanently change Pun-Pun's dexterity score to 10,000. This process is repeated for each ability score. As Pun-Pun increases his strength score with the size-changing trick, he can continue to use this method to increase his other stats as well. For this reason, all of Pun-Pun's ability scores are assumed to be arbitrarily high.

The point is that Pun-Pun and his Viper are leap-frogging. Pun-Pun isn't a Sarrukh while his Viper is doing things to him, and his Viper isn't a Sarrukh while Pun-Pun is doing things to it.

[toapat]

*snip*

i can not understate how incredibly wrong you are in your interpretation of how pun-pun works.

I already explained how pun-pun works, you create two new Manipulate Form abilities, so that Pun-Pun can affect his Viper and the Viper can then affect Pun-Pun.

the Sarrukh is an ally/form of one round

[Rogue Shadows]

i can not understate how incredibly wrong you are in your interpretation of how pun-pun works.

I already explained how pun-pun works, you create two new Manipulate Form abilities, so that Pun-Pun can affect his Viper and the Viper can then affect Pun-Pun.

the Sarrukh is an ally/form of one round

Creating two new Manipulate Form abilities only works if Manipulate Form lets you create completely new abilities, which is open to interpretation, I'm given to understand. The general consesus, I believe, is that MF only lets you make use of printed abilities.

I.e., most people agree that you can't really create "Manipulate Form (Kobold)."

However, if you can create abilities willy-nilly, then the leap-frogging at all is unnecessary since you can just go

1. Viper is a Sarrukh
2. S-Viper gives Pun-pun the ability Immune to Everything, Can do Anything, and Better than the DM in the Sack, Too (Ex)
3. The player of Pun-Pun wins at D&D. End.

[toapat]

Creating two new Manipulate Form abilities only works if Manipulate Form lets you create completely new abilities, which is open to interpretation, I'm given to understand. The general consesus, I believe, is that MF only lets you make use of printed abilities.

No, it isnt. It says you can be granted any Ex, Su, or SLAs.

It says no where that these abilities have to exist beforehand

[HunterOfJello]

1. The most recent version of Pun Pun doesn't require anyone to turn into a Sarrukh.

2. Creating new versions of Manipulate Form is completely unnecessary. It's quite a wide leap to say that just because the ability says that Sarrukh are immune to the effect, that anyone who gains the identical ability is also suddenly immune to the effect. Pun Pun is still hanging out as a Kobold, he hasn't changed his race at all. This also isn't an instance of saying Creature X is immune to its own effects. It's an instance of declaring that the entire Sarrukh race cannot be affected by the specific ability regardless of its source.

When you rewrite the ability to be used by a Kobold, you would change most phrases of "A Sarrukh" to "This Kobold". However, that doesn't arbitrarily change each of the instances of the word "Sarrukh" with "Kobold". Otherwise, it would say "Kobolds are immune to this effect" which would both make absolutely no sense since the ability is a perfect copy (and which wouldn't even matter anyway since the rest of the tricks are all Kobold on Viper action).

~

By having Pun Pun as a Kobold and his Familiar as a Viper, both Pun Pun and his Familiar count as Scaled Ones (and we assume they are both native to Toril).

The most recent version of Pun Pun doesn't require anyone to turn into a Sarukh. The second wish from the Genie is for a NE candle of Invocation. The Candle is used on the Astral Plane (remember the first wish?) to Gate in an actual Sarukh to do the dirty deed.

The Sarukh is commanded to use Manipulate Form [Su] to give Pun Pun the exact same Manipulate Form [Su] ability. Pun Pun is not a Sarrukh, so he is not immune to Manipulate Form even though he now has it. The Viper is also not a Sarrukh, both before and after it is given Manipulate Forum.

The leap frogging for ability scores still works too.