A potential flaw with Pun-Pun

[Bruh_moment]

For those of you who dont know Pun-Pun why are you here?
Pun-Pun works, the probem is that all that casting, that takes time. for example if pun pun wanted 25 million-ish strength (so he can have 12.5 million in all other stats) the closest number an 16 strength (highest a kobold can start with IIRC) pun-pun can get to 25 million is 25,165,824 this takes 21 rounds of pun pun doing nothing but casting the wu jen enlarge (not to mention using the manipulate form back and forth on his familiar who in turn casts manipulate on him and then pun pun on the familiar etc. etc.), now say there is a high level good wizard in forgotten realms (since that is where the sarrukh are detailed and is the easiest way to get past the whole native to Toril) oh wait, there is his name is elminster, very interested in not having all of faerun dying elminster has 21 turns off pun pun strength buffing to kill pun pun, other wise, OH NOES! the world is doomed!

The Battle between elminster and (mid-ascension) Pun-Pun
Elminster pops a greater invisibility 20 turns remain
Elminster pops a clone (just to be sure) 19 turns remain
Elminster casts teleport without error 18 turns remain
Elminster stops time 18 turns remain
Elminster queues up an average of 3 minor creation (black lotus poision) that will go off above pun-pun (he could also decide astral project himself from his brand new genesis plane with a 21047894129767:1 time ratio, but that's a little cheesy) time begins to move again
Elminster tips his wizards hat and watches pun pun die, hard (remember PunPun has yet to use anything but strength boosts, doesn't even have all abilities printed and not printed yet)

I know that pun pun is a theory build but in the world that pun pun is most likely to be doing this in he would likely get thrown into a dumpster (and elminster fighting something that threatens existence is just something that he does, so it fits lore-wise too)

PS. if this has already been said, forgive me

[Kayblis]

If the argument is "the DM makes an epic level wizard come in and kill the character", it's just a passive-aggressive version of "the DM says no". You could have said "the DM says the character dies of sudden meteor shower" and the effect is the same. This is why people don't discuss Pun-pun. Every solution is basically "the DM says no, because he wants to have an actual game".

People that want to have a somewhat consistent world just say the Sarrukh were exterminated by wizards eons ago for their potential to wreck the world. No knowledge of them exists. This is the DM canonizing the "no". Either that or ruling that Manipulate Form doesn't take buffs and temporary values into consideration, if they want to have Sarrukh for some reason, but that'd also require a ruling on the Ex ability thing.

Also, the trick doesn't have to start with Strength. It just does so to ease the reader into the concept of the cheese. It could start with any other part, the Ex abilities, the feats, etc.

[Twurps]

This is not a pun-pun specific problem. This is a problem with any party (good or bad) that starts play in a world where lvl20 casters already exist.
We're all very convinced a well prepared lvl20 wizard cannot be defeated (not even by the deities if I understand correctly, I never do this kind of TO myself), and yet we all regularly embark on our adventure at lvl 1-5 ish, and expect to make it into epic levels. A process which takes a lot more than 21 rounds, and which would usually involve killing(or at least seriously disgruntling) some lvl20 wizards.

Why did the almighty lvl20 wizard not see this coming far in advance and stop the party? I don't know, but whatever the answer is to that question: that's how Pun-Pun rises.

[Bruh_moment]

You're right, this is just a essentially canonizing a "No".

One last question, is there something stopping every sarrukh from pun punning out? because if there isn't my characters are taying as far as possible from forgotten realms as possible

[ExLibrisMortis]

Elminster and Pun-Pun start at level 1. Pun-Pun can ascend at level 1. Elminster can't even cast magic missile, because his first level is in fighter. Pun-Pun wins.

Edit: This is pretty much the point of Pun-Pun: any number of builds can ascend to omnipotence, but Pun-Pun can do it at a lower level than anyone, and he will prevent anyone else from reaching a similar level of power. Including Elminster (who could easily have gated in a sarrukh, if not for Pun-Pun).

[noob]

Elminster and Pun-Pun start at level 1. Pun-Pun can ascend at level 1. Elminster can't even cast magic missile, because his first level is in fighter. Pun-Pun wins.

Edit: This is pretty much the point of Pun-Pun: any number of builds can ascend to omnipotence, but Pun-Pun can do it at a lower level than anyone, and he will prevent anyone else from reaching a similar level of power. Including Elminster (who could easily have gated in a sarrukh, if not for Pun-Pun).

The problem is that a sarrukh reach omnipotence before because they existed before kobolds in any of the lores involving them because they literally created the kobolds.

[ExLibrisMortis]

The problem is that a sarrukh reach omnipotence before because they existed before kobolds in any of the lores involving them because they literally created the kobolds.
Yep. It's a slightly artificial situation. When Pun-Pun was made, there was a race to the "strongest character". At some point, the strongest characters were all more or less of the same power (i.e. omnipotent), and "level of ascension" because more important than power level. That was justified by saying that a lower-level omnipotent character could prevent higher-level hopeful ascendants from progressing. So that gives you a TO world with pretty much everything in the books in place (in casu, a kobold, a sarrukh, and Pazuzu), but by definition no ascended characters yet.

[Zanos]

You're right, this is just a essentially canonizing a "No".

One last question, is there something stopping every sarrukh from pun punning out? because if there isn't my characters are taying as far as possible from forgotten realms as possible
If you're going to do this, there is no reason that Elminister shouldn't be using his epic wizard abilities to divine the existence of any potential threat and immediately destroying it. This means no powerful characters other than Elminister exist, because he has destroyed them all before they could become a threat. Canonically, Elminister is usually occupied, nor does he preemptively kill things before they've done anything wrong, because that isn't very Good.

Just saying no as the DM is much easier.

[Gruftzwerg]

Sorry but I guess Pun-Pun has evolved since your last time reading about it.

You see, Pun-Pun tries to combine all cheese that is available. And there is another build that can get pun-pun like powers and that is my BoBaFeat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?503665).
Since Pun-Pun is a copycat (in regards to available cheese) he copied BoBaFeat's "Mass Clone Production" to reduce his buffing time.

1. Get access to 9th lvl "spellcasting" abilility
2. Give yourself 6x "Improved Spell Capacity [Epic]" to gain a 15th lvl spellslot
3. now you take Silent Spell, Still Spell, Quicken Spell and finally "Innate Spell: Body outside Body"
4. "Spell Stowaway: Body outside Body" is the final buff booster that we need.

Now you and all your clones can use Body outside Body as SLA at will, and everybody in 300feet reach is additionally passively affected by Spell Stowaway. This increases the clone production exponentially several times. Within a few minutes, you will have filled the entire universe with your clones. Enough to speed up the buffing process to a minimum. Since each clone can buff another stat/feat/ability, the buffing shouldn't take longer than a few rounds after you filled the universe with your clones.

Sry mate, but you don't kill pun-pun that easily. You ain't have enough pun you know ;)

[noob]

Sorry but I guess Pun-Pun has evolved since your last time reading about it.

You see, Pun-Pun tries to combine all cheese that is available. And there is another build that can get pun-pun like powers and that is my BoBaFeat (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?503665).
Since Pun-Pun is a copycat (in regards to available cheese) he copied BoBaFeat's "Mass Clone Production" to reduce his buffing time.

1. Get access to 9th lvl "spellcasting" abilility
2. Give yourself 6x "Improved Spell Capacity [Epic]" to gain a 15th lvl spellslot
3. now you take Silent Spell, Still Spell, Quicken Spell and finally "Innate Spell: Body outside Body"
4. "Spell Stowaway: Body outside Body" is the final buff booster that we need.

Now you and all your clones can use Body outside Body as SLA at will, and everybody in 300feet reach is additionally passively affected by Spell Stowaway. This increases the clone production exponentially several times. Within a few minutes, you will have filled the entire universe with your clones. Enough to speed up the buffing process to a minimum. Since each clone can buff another stat/feat/ability, the buffing shouldn't take longer than a few rounds after you filled the universe with your clones.

Sry mate, but you don't kill pun-pun that easily. You ain't have enough pun you know ;)

The real reason why pun pun exist is that until recently there was a scaled one with the ability "Any creature that starts throwing around the same kind of power as a tippyverse wizard or start trying to make itself immune to this ability instantly stops existing" because a sarrukh can give arbitrary abilities to creatures. Due to that there is no omnipotent sarrukh either at game start then the scaled one dies and then the power race starts(it is the simplest way to explain the sudden power race there was that resulted in pun pun becoming omnipotent: without this explanation then sarrukhs had all the power before pun pun tried to get the power)

Without explanations of why the power race started recently there is no pun pun because someone else reached omnipotence before.

[Gruftzwerg]

The real reason why pun pun exist is that until recently there was a scaled one with the ability "Any creature that starts throwing around the same kind of power as a tippyverse wizard or start trying to make itself immune to this ability instantly stops existing" because a sarrukh can give arbitrary abilities to creatures. Due to that there is no omnipotent sarrukh either at game start then the scaled one dies and then the power race starts(it is the simplest way to explain the sudden power race there was that resulted in pun pun becoming omnipotent: without this explanation then sarrukhs had all the power before pun pun tried to get the power)

Without explanations of why the power race started recently there is no pun pun because someone else reached omnipotence before.

Power race ain't always the reason for new discoveries and development. And in Pun-Pun's chase he didn't even invent something new. What he did was just clever abuse of what is already there. It's like realizing that you have enough LEGO parts to build as machine that can build new LEGO parts. That is what he has done.

[noob]

Power race ain't always the reason for new discoveries and development. And in Pun-Pun's chase he didn't even invent something new. What he did was just clever abuse of what is already there. It's like realizing that you have enough LEGO parts to build as machine that can build new LEGO parts. That is what he has done.

I was not talking about the power race as being the reason for things.
There is varied creatures that can reach near unlimited power just by wanting it(ex: those creatures that can just wish they had an item of at will wish due to having supernatural wish).
For those creatures to not reach unlimited power before the first kobold is born something must prevent them from doing so(else all it takes is just a wish or some other single power use)
So we need something that prevents people from just getting unlimited power before the first kobold is born then some event that leaves creatures again free to get unlimited power after the kobold is ready for obtaining it and what happens after(all the creatures knowing that they can reach unlimited power and trying to be the first one to get it) is called a race(one that lasts some turns).
TLdr: because for obtaining pun pun(which is incredibly hard to obtain in fact pun pun is the hardest thing to obtain because you need someone to have placed an arbitrary restriction on the setting) we have to wait for a kobold to be born before raising the ban on reaching omnipotence (because else we can not obtain pun pun if someone becomes omnipotent before) and so we have a long period of time where people learns all the tricks and knows that they can not work due to the "omnipotence blocker" then when the restriction is lifted all the people use the tricks they knows at once.

Basically allowing pun pun to start their tricks necessarily creates a race because there is a moment where people find "oh all those TO tricks we were stashing are now allowed because there is no longer the TO prevention thing that was made so that a kobold could be born before someone becomes omnipotent" at which point everyone starts doing all the to tricks at once.

[Gruftzwerg]

...
TLdr: because for obtaining pun pun(which is incredibly hard to obtain in fact pun pun is the hardest thing to obtain because you need someone to have placed an arbitrary restriction on the setting) we have to wait for a kobold to be born before raising the ban on reaching omnipotence (because else we can not obtain pun pun if someone becomes omnipotent before) and so we have a long period of time where people learns all the tricks and knows that they can not work due to the "omnipotence blocker" then when the restriction is lifted all the people use the tricks they knows at once.

Basically allowing pun pun to start their tricks necessarily creates a race because there is a moment where people find "oh all those TO tricks we were stashing are now allowed because there is no longer the TO prevention thing that was made so that a kobold could be born before someone becomes omnipotent" at which point everyone starts doing all the to tricks at once.

Imho, if you have creatures that are used to a lifestyle with at-will wish, you can't apply regular mortal logic anymore. It's like the Q continuum in Star Trek, where most of them have lost any ambitions for anything because they have experience already everything possible.

In our chase, those beings, that where already there before the first Kobold could go Pun-Pun, had either no ambition to go omnipotent or they are omnipotent for such a long time that they just don't care for anything anymore because of eternal boredom.

[Raishoiken]

How early is the earliest time within which pun pun has been able to become omnipotent?

[noob]

How early is the earliest time within which pun pun has been able to become omnipotent?

Right after a sarrukh create the first kobold if the sarrukh decides to make the kobold omnipotent like them.
Unless you want pun pun to ascend spontaneously in which case it is as soon as they get the ability to start to do shenanigans(so when their initiative starts if they were born with the abilities to do to shenanigans).

[Evoker]

Right after a sarrukh create the first kobold if the sarrukh decides to make the kobold omnipotent like them.
Unless you want pun pun to ascend spontaneously in which case it is as soon as they get the ability to start to do shenanigans(so when their initiative starts if they were born with the abilities to do to shenanigans).

Pretty sure that's not right. Pun-Pun has to become a wizard first, and be old enough for the mass stat boosts from Dragonwroght old age.

[tyckspoon]

Pretty sure that's not right. Pun-Pun has to become a wizard first, and be old enough for the mass stat boosts from Dragonwroght old age.

Depends on if you're counting time in life, or counting levels/XP required to execute whatever bootstraps the character into beginning their ascension process. There is also, AFAIK, nothing in Pun Pun that particularly requires being a Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold, so if this is a sticking point then you can remove it; once you've ascended you can give yourself whatever you would have gained from this, you just might get there a little bit faster (in terms of rounds spent cycling stat increases into permanent improvements) from starting with a higher base.

[Evoker]

Depends on if you're counting time in life, or counting levels/XP required to execute whatever bootstraps the character into beginning their ascension process. There is also, AFAIK, nothing in Pun Pun that particularly requires being a Venerable Dragonwrought Kobold, so if this is a sticking point then you can remove it; once you've ascended you can give yourself whatever you would have gained from this, you just might get there a little bit faster (in terms of rounds spent cycling stat increases into permanent improvements) from starting with a higher base.

I think the higher base stats are there to enable a guarantee of learning about Pazuzu, for the necessary Wish to jump-start the process.

[Bartmanhomer]

Oh boy, I better get my popcorn ready for another Kobold argument. :biggrin:

[ExLibrisMortis]

The real reason why pun pun exist is that until recently there was a scaled one with the ability "Any creature that starts throwing around the same kind of power as a tippyverse wizard or start trying to make itself immune to this ability instantly stops existing"
That actually makes a lot of sense.

By that reasoning, an already-existing proto-Pun Pun could ascend immediately, having aged and gotten their class level prior to the death of the Ascension-Limiting Kobold.

[Bartmanhomer]

*Eating my popcorn*

Its official, Pun-Pun is Uber.