I think I made Pathfinder Pun Pun...


Advice

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So, for a full backstory on this, I got into an argument with a player. This player stubbornly insists that monks, fighters, and other underpowered classes are fair and balanced versus pure spellcasters, like wizards.

Needless to say, I was annoyed. And also needless to say, I told him to roll up an optimized monk, give him 19 identical siblings, and 1v1 ME BRO! The rules were - 20 point buy, average gold for a 20th level character (880,000 gp), and a day prior to the fight to prepare.

So there I was, trolling through some guides and the SRD and adding prospective spells... I was building a Samsaran Diviner to use Mystic past Life cheese and guarantee I'd win initiative.

ACTUAL OPTIMIZATION BEGINS HERE

Then I looked at Create Greater Demiplane, and my optimization went up a level.

You see, you're allowed to alter TIME. Specifically, you can make spell effects timeless - anything with a duration beyond instantaneous persists until dispelled. Alternately, you can make time flow twice as fast or twice as slow.

So here's the idea. The actual build doesn't matter - all you need to do is cast this spell. Then things get fun.

You can interpret what happens if you cast Time Stop in the demiplane two ways - either it lasts forever or it doesn't. Since technically you're just speeding yourself up to infinity, let's assume it doesn't work. So instead, just create another demiplane and give it times two speed, along with the first. Nest about ten demiplanes, and the tenth one will have a time speed moving 1024 times as fast as the normal world. Either way, you get the same effect; a dimension that moves incredibly fast relative to the real world.

So, back on the normal world, memorize a few copies of time stop. Cast it, move super fast, wreck some stuff, whatever. On the round right before it expires, Plane Shift to your super time dimension. Rememorize spells, then shift back. Time's still stopped, but your spell list is fully replenished. Summon an infinite amount of monsters and read this What If about a mole of moles for the effects.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/4/

So, thoughts? This build seems to give you infinite actions forever - there's really no counter. Even the original Pun Pun build in 3.5 didn't go to infinity, just an arbitrarily high number. This does. You never need to leave Time Stop or stop casting spells, so you can basically just do whatever you want for however long you want to do it.

Disclaimer: Please don't use this in a real game. That would just be abusive.


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Dropping a single disjunction at this level of play results in the problem solving itself. If you're lucky, your foe didn't do so as a swift action.

At lower level play an anti-magic field thwarts this as well.


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Turin the Mad wrote:

Dropping a single disjunction at this level of play results in the problem solving itself. If you're lucky, your foe didn't do so as a swift action.

At lower level play an anti-magic field thwarts this as well.

You're entirely correct - assuming the person knows this is happening, finds where you're making the demiplane(s), and casts it. Once you have the infinite Time Stop stuff up, you're moving infinitely fast forever. Nobody has time to do anything anymore.


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Lesser Create Demiplane wrote:
You create a small, finite demiplane. You must be on the Astral or Ethereal Plane or on a plane that has access to one of those planes (such as the Material Plane) to cast this spell.

I'd interpret that as no nesting. Greater doesn't contradict this text, and states it functions as Lesser except (tons of irrelevant stuff).

Secondly, time seems to be measured relative to material. Going from a plane with double time to another plane with double time does not, so far as I can tell, result in quad time.


Jaunt wrote:
Lesser Create Demiplane wrote:
You create a small, finite demiplane. You must be on the Astral or Ethereal Plane or on a plane that has access to one of those planes (such as the Material Plane) to cast this spell.

I'd interpret that as no nesting. Greater doesn't contradict this text, and states it functions as Lesser except (tons of irrelevant stuff).

Secondly, time seems to be measured relative to material. Going from a plane with double time to another plane with double time does not, so far as I can tell, result in quad time.

This is true - it's a very loose interpretation of the rules and what they say. I was kinda reading between the lines... time is relative, so "twice as fast" just means twice as fast as the plane it's relative to, since astral, ethereal, and material all share the same time. I am assuming nesting because when you use the "eject" thing to remove them from the plane, it removes them to the plane you cast it from. Overall though, you're right. It's a very munchkiny "WELL IT DOESN'T SAY I CAN'T" approach. However, I'd say using the timeless magic+time stop thing would still work. Demiplane nesting was only included in case of GM fiat that said Time Stop wouldn't work. Technically, it isn't an instantaneous effect.


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The duration is subjective time- the external effect is instantaneous, I believe. That may be a 3.5 clarification, though. In any case, I'd try to avoid using a solution that has a reasonable chance of being GM vetoed for basic rules validity. Otherwise he makes twenty monks with that one archetype erasing their name from existence upon death as a capstone, names them basic syllables in all spells, has nineteen kill themselves, and the 20th kills your level 20 commoner. (You should prep some silent spells in case.)


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Oh, yeah, of course. Anything like this has a good chance of being vetoed - it's just a thought exercise.


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I give up on trying to understand planar geography. Unless I'm mistaken, every plane would have access to the Astral. So all that restriction does is stop you from making a demiplane in the Akashic Record, or something.


Jaunt wrote:
I give up on trying to understand planar geography. Unless I'm mistaken, every plane would have access to the Astral. So all that restriction does is stop you from making a demiplane in the Akashic Record, or something.

Pretty much :p

Scarab Sages

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Do you realize that this is all an entirely contrived scenario, isolated from the entire rest of the game, engineered from the start to prove a foregone conclusion? You're trying to prove there's something wrong with the game by setting up a situation that would never, ever, occur in actual gameplay - therefore, your claim that this "proves" that wizards are too powerful and fighters/monks/rogues aren't powerful enough is completely groundless.


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Heck even I agree this scenario is silly and pointless, and I agree with his basic premise.


kyrt-ryder wrote:
Heck even I agree this scenario is silly and pointless, and I agree with his basic premise.

Of course it's pointless. What did you expect? I even said at the bottom never to use it in a real game, that it was a thought experiment.

Sheesh.


I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Do you realize that this is all an entirely contrived scenario, isolated from the entire rest of the game, engineered from the start to prove a foregone conclusion? You're trying to prove there's something wrong with the game by setting up a situation that would never, ever, occur in actual gameplay - therefore, your claim that this "proves" that wizards are too powerful and fighters/monks/rogues aren't powerful enough is completely groundless.

Just so we're clear - it's pretty accepted that spellcasters outclass nonspellcasters by a lot. This is a contrived situation, but even without crazy exploits like this it's easy to destroy nonspellcasters before they even get time to act.

You... do realize that right?


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Saph_Arcanic wrote:
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Do you realize that this is all an entirely contrived scenario, isolated from the entire rest of the game, engineered from the start to prove a foregone conclusion? You're trying to prove there's something wrong with the game by setting up a situation that would never, ever, occur in actual gameplay - therefore, your claim that this "proves" that wizards are too powerful and fighters/monks/rogues aren't powerful enough is completely groundless.

Just so we're clear - it's pretty accepted that spellcasters outclass nonspellcasters by a lot. This is a contrived situation, but even without crazy exploits like this it's easy to destroy nonspellcasters before they even get time to act.

You... do realize that right?

Even though I agree with you, I gotta say: Oh boy, here we go again.

But remember, "martial-caster disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."


Athaleon wrote:
Saph_Arcanic wrote:
I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Do you realize that this is all an entirely contrived scenario, isolated from the entire rest of the game, engineered from the start to prove a foregone conclusion? You're trying to prove there's something wrong with the game by setting up a situation that would never, ever, occur in actual gameplay - therefore, your claim that this "proves" that wizards are too powerful and fighters/monks/rogues aren't powerful enough is completely groundless.

Just so we're clear - it's pretty accepted that spellcasters outclass nonspellcasters by a lot. This is a contrived situation, but even without crazy exploits like this it's easy to destroy nonspellcasters before they even get time to act.

You... do realize that right?

Even though I agree with you, I gotta say: Oh boy, here we go again.

*min/max tears*

IT'S A SIMPLE OPTIMIZATION PROBLEM WITH MINIMAL STATS INVOLVED! I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY THERE EVER WAS A DEBATE!


Saph_Arcanic wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:

Dropping a single disjunction at this level of play results in the problem solving itself. If you're lucky, your foe didn't do so as a swift action.

At lower level play an anti-magic field thwarts this as well.

You're entirely correct - assuming the person knows this is happening, finds where you're making the demiplane(s), and casts it. Once you have the infinite Time Stop stuff up, you're moving infinitely fast forever. Nobody has time to do anything anymore.

Not really - my latter option clamps a "cease and desist" on the spot where you were standing, pulling you back in for the melee beat-down. The disjunction wipes out EVERY spell up and running. There are ways to make either happen reactively. ;)


Turin the Mad wrote:
Saph_Arcanic wrote:
Turin the Mad wrote:

Dropping a single disjunction at this level of play results in the problem solving itself. If you're lucky, your foe didn't do so as a swift action.

At lower level play an anti-magic field thwarts this as well.

You're entirely correct - assuming the person knows this is happening, finds where you're making the demiplane(s), and casts it. Once you have the infinite Time Stop stuff up, you're moving infinitely fast forever. Nobody has time to do anything anymore.

Not really - my latter option clamps a "cease and desist" on the spot where you were standing, pulling you back in for the melee beat-down. The disjunction wipes out EVERY spell up and running. There are ways to make either happen reactively. ;)

Mhmm, as I said, if you know it's coming, it can be countered. But if you don't... Time Stop supercedes everything, last I checked.

Why does disjunction even exist... the most powerful effects in the game don't NEED counters...

Scarab Sages

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It's "pretty accepted" only because one side keeps loudly harping on the issue and moving forward as though they've achieved victory because the other side hasn't been able to persuade them - and as I've learned the hardest of hard ways, being able to win an argument has very little to do with being right. If the other guy is unable to/won't try to understand what you're saying, there's upsettingly little one can do. We're not really having the same argument.

Athaleon wrote:


But remember, "martial-caster disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."

With an attitude like that, why should any of the rest of us even bother to listen to you? I'd actually call this pretty damning for your side - it's like calling someone Hitler after it's been established that it's never cool to call people Hitler (even when it's totally legitimate and even necessary to do so, but that has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here).


I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:

It's "pretty accepted" only because one side keeps loudly harping on the issue and moving forward as though they've achieved victory because the other side hasn't been able to persuade them - and as I've learned the hardest of hard ways, being able to win an argument has very little to do with being right. If the other guy can't/won't try to understand what you're saying, there's upsettingly little one can do. We're not really having the same argument.

Athaleon wrote:


But remember, "martial-caster disparity is a myth propagated by people with agendas."
With an attitude like that, why should any of the rest of us even bother to listen to you? I'd actually call this pretty damning for your side - it's calling someone Hitler after it's been established that it's never cool to call people Hitler (even when it's totally legitimate and even necessary to do so, but that has NOTHING to do with what we're talking about here).

...I think you may have missed something there, my friend.

Scarab Sages

Saph_Arcanic wrote:

...I think you may have missed something there, my friend.

A statement which could literally mean anything. I'd have no difficulty saying the same for you.


I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
Do you realize that this is all an entirely contrived scenario, isolated from the entire rest of the game, engineered from the start to prove a foregone conclusion? You're trying to prove there's something wrong with the game by setting up a situation that would never, ever, occur in actual gameplay - therefore, your claim that this "proves" that wizards are too powerful and fighters/monks/rogues aren't powerful enough is completely groundless.

Nah, there are games where people actually do things like this.

Look at ENWorld in their Storyhour section. There is one called "Tales of Wyre," (though I think the characters are in multiple threads now). It was 3.5 when read through it, they may have gone to Pathfinder later.

Long running campaign, very knowledgeable players and DM. Early on a character called "Mostin the Metagnostic" ran away with everything. So it seems like everyone in that campaign plays a caster now.

Tons and tons of posts on the campaign. I got bored with it when it seemed like "Mostin builds a prison in the core of the planet (with an explanation of what spells he used), Mostin imprisons Demon Lord there, etc" rinse and repeat.

I'm not sure the trick the OP put up is one that campaign ever used, but trust me they did all kinds of funky stuff.

Scarab Sages

By then you're playing an ENTIRELY different game, though - you don't seem to allow for the fact that if you warp anything to a sufficient extreme, it WILL become something completely different. This is why you don't allow just any far-fetched hypothetical to be considered a valid argument just because it's technically possible.

Silver Crusade

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Saph_Arcanic wrote:
So, for a full backstory on this, I got into an argument with a player. This player stubbornly insists that monks, fighters, and other underpowered classes are fair and balanced versus pure spellcasters, like wizards....

Or you could just win initiative, drop a quickened time stop, and wreck their collective worlds with the 5000 explosive runes you prepared. You wouldn't even need to fight 1-on-1.


Athaleon, I like you. We should build pure spellcasters and cackle madly sometime. :)

Isonarac... yes. Excellent use of the idea. Or use the Prismatic spells! There are so many wonderful options to go with.


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Holy crap. I came here for a fun little exercise and instead we got hammered with this idea that the very notion of a Pathfinder Pun-Pun is an insult. How did a thread made strictly for s!&$s and giggles turn into a ridiculously vicious argument?

I think these forums are way too sensitive about potential "flaws" in the game. Yes, it's contrived. Do you not understand the point of a Pun-Pun?


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Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Holy crap. I came here for a fun little exercise and instead we got hammered with this idea that the very notion of a Pathfinder Pun-Pun is an insult. How did a thread made strictly for s!@*s and giggles turn into a ridiculously vicious argument?

I think these forums are way too sensitive about potential "flaws" in the game. Yes, it's contrived. Do you not understand the point of a Pun-Pun?

THANK YOU! IT'S A FREAKING THOUGHT EXERCISE NOT A THING TO USE IN GAME UNLESS YOU'RE A JERK!

And even then, any DM that isn't a rock disguised as a person will tell you to cut it out.


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In fairness, reading your post more closely, you did bring up the martial-caster disparity.

There's kind of a thing about that.

Liberty's Edge

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After reading a few threads like this on the 'martial/caster disparity', the '15 minute adventuring day', and similar tropes that never made sense to me, I think I may now be getting a handle on them.

In my experience, these things (as described above and in similar threads) are known by the alternate term, 'Bad GMing'.

If Time Stop, Create Demiplane, Simulacrum, Gate, Wish, or any other spell can make you all powerful... you're doing it wrong.


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CBDunkerson wrote:

After reading a few threads like this on the 'martial/caster disparity', the '15 minute adventuring day', and similar tropes that never made sense to me, I think I may now be getting a handle on them.

In my experience, these things (as described above and in similar threads) are known by the alternate term, 'Bad GMing'.

If Time Stop, Create Demiplane, Simulacrum, Gate, Wish, or any other spell can make you all powerful... you're doing it wrong.

Yes. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL PLAY.

On the other hand, casters have access to "fair" (read - intended, unlike this nonsense) abilities that are totally game wrecking too. The existence of spellcasting abilities is why they're considered more powerful, not this specific scenario. A caster can have a spell for nearly any situation whereas a fighter... can hit things. Not even very well. That's the issue I was referring to, not this exploit in particular.


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Saph_Arcanic wrote:
CBDunkerson wrote:

After reading a few threads like this on the 'martial/caster disparity', the '15 minute adventuring day', and similar tropes that never made sense to me, I think I may now be getting a handle on them.

In my experience, these things (as described above and in similar threads) are known by the alternate term, 'Bad GMing'.

If Time Stop, Create Demiplane, Simulacrum, Gate, Wish, or any other spell can make you all powerful... you're doing it wrong.

Yes. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL PLAY.

On the other hand, casters have access to "fair" (read - intended, unlike this nonsense) abilities that are totally game wrecking too. The existence of spellcasting abilities is why they're considered more powerful, not this specific scenario. A caster can have a spell for nearly any situation whereas a fighter... can hit things. Not even very well. That's the issue I was referring to, not this exploit in particular.

Nuance time! Most Fighters can hit things quite well. It's their defenses, and their ability to do things other than "use iron on baddie", which are at issue. It's a problem for all non-caster or minor-caster classes to varying degrees, because Spells can do many powerful things that Skills cannot (not even UMD, unless you want to throw around so much gold that we're back into "DM will never let you" territory). And casters get Skills too.


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CBDunkerson wrote:

{Deceptive Edit of Quote, MWA HA HA!!}

Time Stop, Create Demiplane, Simulacrum, Gate, Wish, or any other spell can make you all powerful... you're doing it wrong.

I think that is the point that we are trying to make to the designers.


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CBDunkerson wrote:

After reading a few threads like this on the 'martial/caster disparity', the '15 minute adventuring day', and similar tropes that never made sense to me, I think I may now be getting a handle on them.

In my experience, these things (as described above and in similar threads) are known by the alternate term, 'Bad GMing'.

If Time Stop, Create Demiplane, Simulacrum, Gate, Wish, or any other spell can make you all powerful... you're doing it wrong.

Oberoni must be proud of you.


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Or, to put this in simpler terms:

Take the monk. Spell resistance... 30 at 20th level. Most saves save is probably around... oh, let's say +20. That's assuming a stat of 26, which is probably a bit off, but I think it's a good metric.

On average, a wizard with the usual stuff has 75% chance to penetrate the spell resistance, and a 65% chance to overcome any saves. Now, monk's high, and on average the wizard is running about even with spells.

But wait, there's a better way. See, assuming the wizard is using spells that run through both SR and a save, the monk has a decent chance to get in and get a Quivering Palm or something.

But plenty of spells ignore both of those. Time Stop, cast Summon Monster for a bunch of stuff that the monk will eventually die to. use Mage's Disjunction to destroy any magic items, dropping those saves a reasonable margin if there's any items involved. Drop a prismatic sphere over them. Use Forcecage and throw rocks or something. There's too many spells that ignore or override the monk's defenses, and too few ways for the monk to get at the wizard.


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The 1v1 situations is fairly contrived. To be able to say anything we need to know the set up of the arena.

For example: How far apart do the combatants start? Where does the fight take place? etc.

For example: Say the fight starts within 5 ft. your foe is a Tetori. If he wins initiative, you are grappled and your Freedom Of Movement is suppressed. Also, he dimensional anchors you. You are quickly strangled as your contingent teleport fails.

On the other hand, say the wizard wins initiative. He can greater teleport to a different planet, put on a mind blank and wait while the monk dies of old age.


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I would not allow the nesting the demiplanes. I don't think a demiplane is within the plane it's cast from, thus nesting make no sense.


To the OP,

Very VERY interesting find, wow!

Imagine a GM actually pulling this on someone, that would be a serious table flip.

;)


I think the TS trick works. If it does not work that also means that the spell can not be extended. It could still be maximized or empowered.

Personally i think that spell should be instant and the 1d4+1 rounds of time should only be in the spell's text.

As to those who think that all you need to do is disjoin the wizard, good luck. Spellbane makes that difficult unless you can get one of your own to cancel his and get close to wizard.

Community Manager

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Removed some posts and their responses. Dial it back, folks, and keep this on topic.


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I'm Hiding In Your Closet wrote:
By then you're playing an ENTIRELY different game, though - you don't seem to allow for the fact that if you warp anything to a sufficient extreme, it WILL become something completely different. This is why you don't allow just any far-fetched hypothetical to be considered a valid argument just because it's technically possible.

Do note that high-level spellcasters have the ability to play this game as part of their class features.

High-level Martials do not.

This is the caster-martial-disparity, and the reason people who argue against do so is that they don't experience it - to their thinking it's, as you say, a "warped", alien version of the game.

And that's absolutely fine. What's not fine is that they go out and say stuff like 'martial caster disparity does not exist!' Because that's obviously false. It exists, and it's not a problem.

These boards, I swear to god.

Anyway, back on topic, neat trick. As another poster pointed out, I don't think it works, though - time dilation is probably tracked relative to the material plane.

Beating 20 monks 20 could be a trivial task, or it might be hard, depending on whether you intend to fight them directly, and if they buy items of true seeing.

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