Holes in cheese

[Balor01]

I wanted to write this awhile ...

I have to say I am quite a source of aggravation for cheeserollers in my games, so I'd like to discuss this whole cheese thing from this standpoint: All really powerfull cheese predicts some über favorable conditions. I'll lay out just two cases of this since I do not have the will to go into every conceivable broken idea in 3.5.

First is one of PunPun builds:

1. Make sure that your alignment is not CE. LG would work best. You want to benefit the multiverse and there is no better way to do that than for it to be like puddy in your hands.

First of all, gods with decent scrying abilities and portfolio sense know beforehand what will happen. So they will trump this. Nobody needs another god on the block, who wants to "benefit the universe".

2. You need a Knowledge check of 25 to know that you can summon Pazazu like Beetlejuice. As a Psion with a Sage Psicrystal, an 18 Intelligence, the Skill Focus feat, four ranks in Knowledge (The Planes) and a masterwork item of relevance (say a book), you can take 10 to get 25. It's ok that you got bullied as a child for your narrow focus and strange fascination in all things relating to the planes. It will pay off in the end.

Mentioned crystal may be missing, there may even not be Pazuzu. Also, Pazuzu, being pretty strong guy may have a contingency plan for all those pesky would-be summoners invilving death/idiocy ...

3. Summon Pazuzu by calling out his name three times. He'll appear and be like "Yo! What the hell?!?! What do you want Mor-tal? Power? I can give it!" You'll look all calm and not impressed and be like "I'd prefer a Lawful Evil aligned Candle of Invocation". "There is a price!" the demon lord will scream. "You must go closer to EV-ILL!!!" "Ok" you will say. "I shall be Neutral Good from now on." Pazuzu shouts "If you're going to stick with the one shift limit I would greatly prefer that you shifted to Lawful Neutral over Neutral Good!!!" You will look as if this is a deal breaker and you are ready to leave, then say "You're a real ballbuster but we have a deal."
"Ok" you will say. "I shall be Neutral Good from now on." Pazuzu shouts "If you're going to stick with the one shift limit I would greatly prefer that you shifted to Lawful Neutral over Neutral Good!!!"

"A powerful demon prince, called the Prince of the Lower Aerial Kingdoms" as stated in wiki, is not a retard. First of all, he will know pun-pun will be pwned by greater powers, but IF he grants a wish, he wants some of the darkest evilry. Unless you intend to develop epic insta-flay spell for all newborns for next 100 years, you are not getting squat. I mean a common commoner () would not grant anything for such a deal, let alone Pazuzu.

Now you have your candle.
4. Use the Candle to Gate in an Efreeti. He is under your control so you will command him to grant you three wishes. The first is to Plane Shift to the Astral Plane. The second is for another Candle of Invocation. The third is to stop George Lucas from moving forward on Indiana Jones 5.

I like the George Lucas part. But I am sure there is some epic monster cought on astral plane, nom-noming on would-be pun-puns teleported there by Erfeeti. Maybe he just made a deal with genies or just likes to pwn would-be ascendants.

5. Use the Candle to Gate in a Sarruhk. Command him to grant you Manipulate Form through the use of Manipulate Form.

I am sure Sarrukh has on one of his lists "do not be pwned by would-be ascendants" and I am sure he/she/it is able to do something about it.

Ascend.

Yes, well, no.

Second is Chaingating ... anything.
Angels are good, devils/demons are bad. They want to be used for specific purpose. If they even want to be used. Also, these are very smart creatures. Unless used exceptionally carefully, you will very rapidly have half of Heaven/Hell on your tail.
And considering that even a single balor is thousand of years old and expert in spellcasting (it is 3.5 afterall, lets forget silly SRD stats), stronger creatures will go full batman on summoners @ss if he pulls off some chaingating shenanigans they do not like. Chaingating is IMO a bit like holding tigers tail.

I also noticed many cheesers like to interpret spell description very favorable for them. Restrictive interpretation locks down a lot of cheese.

[DoctorGlock]

Cheese is based in RAW, all this is still RAW legal. The rules exist in a vacuum. Introduce fiat and you can make those arguments for anything.

Also, who has ever said to use punpun in an actual game?

[Greenish]

My mind, she boggles. Who would've thought that TO tricks can be negated by DM fiat!?

In other news, the sky is blue and monks suck.

[The Gilded Duke]

You do know that Pun-Pun isn't a serious build idea? And that the build itself doesn't rely on Pazuzu or Alignment wishes at all? Those are just used to get the main trick up and running at level 1. There were various methods using alternate form and metamorphosis that got the same result by I believe level 8 or level 16.

Sarukh is a race of creatures. They are not gods, they can be dominated coerced and controlled like any other creature. Even if all of them had some sort of supernatural resistance to being coerced, that doesn't stop you from turning into one and pulling the same trick.

As far as chain gating, it is a pretty obvious, and pretty poorly designed flaw to allow monsters that can summon monsters also to be summoned. Summon Monster was designed to avoid such a flaw, but the Binding / Gate rules were not.

I think its much more reasonable to say that bound / gated creatures cannot use their abilities to summon or call. If summoning / binding gets all of heaven or hell after you, what is the point of the binding spells even existing?

Lastly, not usually good to bring in gods to restrict player actions. Especially if using the statted out rules for gods. Among other things, gods can be tricked.

[Greenish]

You do know that Pun-Pun isn't a serious build idea? And that the build itself doesn't rely on Pazuzu or Alignment wishes at all? Those are just used to get the main trick up and running at level 1. There were various methods using alternate form and metamorphosis that got the same result by I believe level 8 or level 16.

Mirror Mephit and Precocious Caster can start the wish loop at level 1 without Pazuzu.

[Big Fau]

It's easy to find the holes in a block of cheese when someone else is using a drill. Seriously, you could not have stated something more obvious.

[The-Mage-King]

{{scrubbed}}

[DoctorGlock]

{{scrubbed}}

Is there a "like" button?

[The-Mage-King]

Is there a "like" button?

No, but people keep saying that we need one...

Also, okay if I sig that?

[DoctorGlock]

No, but people keep saying that we need one...

Also, okay if I sig that?

go for it, i don't mind

[Mystic Muse]

First is one of PunPun builds:

First of all, gods with decent scrying abilities and portfolio sense know beforehand what will happen. So they will trump this. Nobody needs another god on the block, who wants to "benefit the universe".

Which god has people ascending to Godhood as part of one of their portfolios?

Mentioned crystal may be missing, there may even not be Pazuzu. Also, Pazuzu, being pretty strong guy may have a contingency plan for all those pesky would-be summoners invilving death/idiocy...

You're correct. This particular trick may be foiled by Pazuzu not existing in the DMs universe.

"A powerful demon prince, called the Prince of the Lower Aerial Kingdoms" as stated in wiki, is not a retard. First of all, he will know pun-pun will be pwned by greater powers, but IF he grants a wish, he wants some of the darkest evilry. Unless you intend to develop epic insta-flay spell for all newborns for next 100 years, you are not getting squat.

Unless you're using DM fiat to change Pazuzu's fluff, according to Fiendish Codex 1 "Pazuzu almost always agrees to provide aid" (Unless you're already evil, in which case you may be smote in addition to being provided no aid because you wasted his time) and if the requester is a Paladin it explicitly says "No evil comes of this assistance, hoping to encourage the Paladin to call on him again."

So, even ignoring the fact that Pun-Pun was never intended to be used in actual games, you're explicitly wrong about this.

I like the George Lucas part. But I am sure there is some epic monster cought on astral plane, nom-noming on would-be pun-puns teleported there by Erfeeti. Maybe he just made a deal with genies or just likes to pwn would-be ascendants.

DM fiat, and as far as I recall, shifting to the Astral plane is irrelevant to the trick as a whole anyway. You're trying to tear apart one incarnation of the Pun-Pun trick.

I am sure Sarrukh has on one of his lists "do not be pwned by would-be ascendants" and I am sure he/she/it is able to do something about it.

Sarrukh is apparently a race, not a unique outsider, so it falls under the normal restrictions for gate, meaning you control it.

Second is Chaingating ... anything.
Angels are good, devils/demons are bad. They want to be used for specific purpose. If they even want to be used. Also, these are very smart creatures. Unless used exceptionally carefully, you will very rapidly have half of Heaven/Hell on your tail.

Heaven and Hell have more important things to do than to go after one guy chaingating stuff. They might send a few high level demons/angels/whatever after you if they really consider it a problem, but otherwise they have much more important things to attend to.

And considering that even a single balor is thousand of years old and expert in spellcasting (it is 3.5 afterall, lets forget silly SRD stats)

Let's not, because the Rules as Written are the only common ground we have to work from. Also, you're making things up again. Balors are never said to be master spellcasters, at least not in the monster manual. [quote]

stronger creatures will go full batman on summoners @ss if he pulls off some chaingating shenanigans they do not like.

Except none of the evil outsiders in the SRD can go batman because none of them have the spells other than SLAs. Unless you specifically make stuff up that is.

I also noticed many cheesers like to interpret spell description very favorable for them. Restrictive interpretation locks down a lot of cheese.

Of course it does. That's why it's called theoretical optimization.

As others have pointed out, this is all pretty obvious, and some of it is outright wrong.

[enderlord99]

Which god has people ascending to Godhood as part of one of their portfolios?

Io.

[Geigan]

Io.

Or is it Ao? Overdeities and their simple similar names.*grumble*

[Coidzor]

Or is it Ao? Overdeities and their simple similar names.*grumble*

Io is the guy who spawned Bahamut, Tiamat, and the other dragon deities.

Ao is either Ed Greenwood or the company that owns the D&D intellectual property, depending upon who you ask.

[enderlord99]

I actually meant Vecna, now that I think about it. Or possibly Cyric.

[Treblain]

One hole in cheese that always annoys me is the oft-quoted Contingency and/or Celerity combo that allegedly makes wizards impossible to beat the moment they gain access to them. Contingency is an Evocation spell, and all wizards absolutely must ban evocation because it's a suboptimal school. Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers. Also, Celerity is an immediate action, which can't be used while flat-footed. You can avoid being flat-footed through Foresight, but that's a 9th level spell, and no one disputes the fact that 9th level spells are game-breaking.

[nyarlathotep]

One hole in cheese that always annoys me is the oft-quoted Contingency and/or Celerity combo that allegedly makes wizards impossible to beat the moment they gain access to them. Contingency is an Evocation spell, and all wizards absolutely must ban evocation because it's a suboptimal school. Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers. Also, Celerity is an immediate action, which can't be used while flat-footed. You can avoid being flat-footed through Foresight, but that's a 9th level spell, and no one disputes the fact that 9th level spells are game-breaking.

But you see you are already polymorphed into a dire tortoise from the moment you gain access to it.

[DoctorGlock]

One hole in cheese that always annoys me is the oft-quoted Contingency and/or Celerity combo that allegedly makes wizards impossible to beat the moment they gain access to them. Contingency is an Evocation spell, and all wizards absolutely must ban evocation because it's a suboptimal school. Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers. Also, Celerity is an immediate action, which can't be used while flat-footed. You can avoid being flat-footed through Foresight, but that's a 9th level spell, and no one disputes the fact that 9th level spells are game-breaking.

Most of us are domain wizards. What is a banned school?

[NNescio]

One hole in cheese that always annoys me is the oft-quoted Contingency and/or Celerity combo that allegedly makes wizards impossible to beat the moment they gain access to them. Contingency is an Evocation spell, and all wizards absolutely must ban evocation because it's a suboptimal school. Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers. Also, Celerity is an immediate action, which can't be used while flat-footed. You can avoid being flat-footed through Foresight, but that's a 9th level spell, and no one disputes the fact that 9th level spells are game-breaking.

And Contingency lasts several days per cast, plus it doesn't actually take up any spell slots (other than the ones used to cast it, which refresh the day after) before it discharges.

[Big Fau]

Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers.

Actually, Craft Contingent Spell is glossed over because it's 10 times more broken than Contingency. And when people refer to Contingency on a Specialist Wizard, they usually are refering to one of the various methods of obtaining the spell even with Evocation banned (there's several ways to do this).

[dextercorvia]

Most of us are domain wizards. What is a banned school?

TBF, some are Dragonborn Gray Elven Generalist Domain Wizards.

[The-Mage-King]

One hole in cheese that always annoys me is the oft-quoted Contingency and/or Celerity combo that allegedly makes wizards impossible to beat the moment they gain access to them. Contingency is an Evocation spell, and all wizards absolutely must ban evocation because it's a suboptimal school. Yes, there's Greater Shadow Evocation and Craft Contingent Spell, but both of those are more significant investments of resources that are always glossed over by the optimizers. Also, Celerity is an immediate action, which can't be used while flat-footed. You can avoid being flat-footed through Foresight, but that's a 9th level spell, and no one disputes the fact that 9th level spells are game-breaking.

Uh, GENERALIST?

Or what about Domain Wizards?

Or "Craft Contigent Spell"?


Or-


I could go on, but others have done so.

[NNescio]

Actually, Craft Contingent Spell is glossed over because it's 10 times more broken than Contingency. And when people refer to Contingency on a Specialist Wizard, they usually are refering to one of the various methods of obtaining the spell even with Evocation banned (there's several ways to do this).

"You activated my Trap Card!"
"No, you activated by Trap Card!"
"...which triggers my second Trap Card here!"
"I saw that coming and had this prepared!"
"Ah, but you see, that causes another..."
...
<sip>
"How's the tea?"
"Very good, thank you. Now let's get back to work."
"Yeah, these pages of contingencies aren't going to sort themselves out."

[Analytica]

Or is it Ao? Overdeities and their simple similar names.*grumble*

Yes. Arguably this _does_ matter, though. Sarrukhs exist only in the Forgotten Realms setting, where Ao, who is beyond stats, in fact does have the power to deny anyone gaining divinity. But... dead horse, I iz beating it...

[The Gilded Duke]

However, from what I remember, Forgotten Realms is tied to the standard planar cosmology. If you were in another plane of existence, not one directly touching the material plane (and thus ao's domain) you could still gate in a Sarukh from the prime material to say the Elemental Plane of Air.

Does gating etc work inside Sigil? From what I remember Gods specifically were unable to access that city. If summoning gating etc does work inside Sigil, then you should be able to summon a Sarukh there without any interference from Ao or any other gods.

[Treblain]

Actually, Craft Contingent Spell is glossed over because it's 10 times more broken than Contingency. And when people refer to Contingency on a Specialist Wizard, they usually are refering to one of the various methods of obtaining the spell even with Evocation banned (there's several ways to do this).

Yes, all I'm saying is that if people aren't actually using Contingency, but some other trick, they should say so, not just say "Contingency=win". Greater Shadow Evocation is an 8th level spell, not a 6th, so saying "I'm using Contingency" is misleading. It also makes the assumption that you haven't banned Illusion, a useful but sometimes situational school. And I don't even want to talk about the details of Craft Contingent Spell; my point was just that it takes up a feat slot, so it isn't as simple as preparing a spell.

And if you're going Generalist or Domain Wizard, that precludes other wizard tricks (IE: Domain Wizard means no Abrupt Jaunt or Incantatrix). But when people talk about their broken, unstoppable wizard, they won't note the fact that some of these are mutually exclusive, hence the 'holes' in the cheese.

[The-Mage-King]

Wait, what? Domain wizard can go Incantrix. Can't get Abrupt Jaunt, though.

[Wyntonian]

This thread caused an unholy union of my desk and my face. I'd comment further, but The Mage King took care of it for me.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Yes, all I'm saying is that if people aren't actually using Contingency, but some other trick, they should say so, not just say "Contingency=win".

Do they say "Contingency" or "contingency"? Because one is a spell and one is a word, and I see the latter much more often. (Also, I don't see anything in the post you're quoting regarding not using Contingency, just using a myriad of ways to get it.)

[Treblain]

Wait, what? Domain wizard can go Incantrix. Can't get Abrupt Jaunt, though.

I don't have experience with either Domain Wizard or Incantatrix, nor do I have the text of Incantatrix, but I've seen some debate on the forums about the legality of entering Incantatrix through Domain Wizard, most recently in some of the posts in this thread.