Mary Sues / Gary Stus


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yeah your probably right about that half of his stats would be to weak still im fairly confident in the pesant rail gun as long as the to hit roll is a 20


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You could get Simulacrum as a SLA, increase your CL to arbitrary levels through one of the popular means, then make a Simulacrum of Pun Pun and turn yourself into his copy using the same cheese he used in the first place.

But since PunPun isn't from pathfinder, you would have to make some sort of conversion, which will affect how defeatable he is.


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I don't think the same cheese in 3.5 that creates pun pun works in pf. which could definitely add a story element to the proposed game. almost a war of the universes kind of game with galactus and the anti-monitor decideing to beat the other down.

actually what it reminds me of is the death battle between chuck norris va segata sanshiro


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Pun Pun's problem is that if you let him achieve The Ultimate Cheese and he is at least somewhat smart, he is literally undefeatable. He could monitor everything that happens on every plane and immediately intervene if he notices anything that could harm him(like, another Pun Pun manifesting or high level adventurers). It takes him about a day to go from "just a kobold" to "F$~@ You", so you really have to already be mostly ready before it happens.

That in turn means that an adventure about Pun Pun has to be about something other than Pun Pun for 95% of the playthrough.

In 3.5 it really is quite easy. Make another Pun Pun(simulacrum), get a drop on the original(pump initiative higher than original's and add some sort of dimensional travel shenanigans), touch him(touch attack, so boost your DEX higher than the original's. You'll need it for the previous step too), reverse his cheese(he can't be immune to the Manipulate Form ability, otherwise his cheese doesn't work, so just pump your DC higher than his FORT save and you are golden), enjoy your victory.


so you would have to do the game about a more gradual pun pun emerging like maybe hes slowly changing universes you can say its taking so long cause of conversions or you know since there is no real rules for something like that just say it takes time and is gradual and then you can say he was weakened by the rules shift then let the players break out all the cheese they can I wouldn't want to run it but i would play


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Vidmaster7 wrote:
so you would have to do the game about a more gradual pun pun emerging like maybe hes slowly changing universes you can say its taking so long cause of conversions or you know since there is no real rules for something like that just say it takes time and is gradual and then you can say he was weakened by the rules shift then let the players break out all the cheese they can I wouldn't want to run it but i would play

It has to happen fast, otherwise I really see no reason why gods wouldn't intervene. If it takes a day then "we had no idea before it was too late" is at least a sensible explanation.


well pun pun can gain abilities of others right maybe gods are worried he will copy something of theirs and be worse? in 3.5 hes worse then deities right? but in pathfinder that is not possible so he would take a power decrease maybe? or would he be coming out full omnipotent pun pun and even deities would fear him? then your asking the pcs to beat the power of a god so it might be impossible then. there is definitely a lot to consider.


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If you are going to deal with Pun Pun, you need to stat deities too, there is just no way around that. Because Pun Pun can do whatever it is they can do, and possibly more. In basic pathfinder, deities aren't statted because they are orders of magnitude above whatever you could do, which would no longer be the case.


If you did it that way you would really have no way of fighting him then. I think you have to assume he got weaker from the conversion for it to work at all.


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Klara is correct; part of his schtick involves cloning an army of gods.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
If you did it that way you would really have no way of fighting him then. I think you have to assume he got weaker from the conversion for it to work at all.

You are assuming PCs are weaker than gods. Faulty assumption.


Klara Meison wrote:
Vidmaster7 wrote:
If you did it that way you would really have no way of fighting him then. I think you have to assume he got weaker from the conversion for it to work at all.
You are assuming PCs are weaker than gods. Faulty assumption.

An infinite number of arbitrarily powerful PC gods, however is almost certainly going to be more powerful than 4 garden variety PCs.


I didn't know there was a way to get god powerful in pathfinder like pun pun type tricks is there a link to it or an example?


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...Play a 10-tier Mythic game?


isn't that more demi-god? i'll give you that does make you feel pretty godlike, but is it pun-pun godlike?


It depends on where you stop upgrading pun-pun basically. A party of 4 level 20-mythic 10 characters can reasonably do over 15k dpr when fully buffed, ignoring minions. Vanilla Pun-Pun, the least upgraded/non-deific variety, arbitrarily stops upgrading his stats when he has +10,000 modifiers for everything. He has arbitrarily large HD, but lets say that vanilla pun-pun only has 20 HD; that means he has somewhere around 200 k hp, so an average party can down him in about 14 rounds. Pun-Pun on the other hand has +10,000 str and enough attacks to kill the party in one round. Also arbitrarily high caster levels (we'll say 20 since it's vanilla), arbitrarily high DCs (we'll say ~10,010 since it's vanilla), and can take infinite actions per round (we'll cap this as one standard, move, and swift action since it's vanilla).

So no, Mythic is not pun-pun; if we stop pun-pun somewhere reasonable---thus defeating the entire point of his existence---then he's at least manageable with enough bodies by utilizing the mythic ruleset. This of course ignores miss chance, which pun-pun has a static 95% chance of on top of any spells he casts since his AC is over 10,000. On the plus side mythic has stuff to permanently deny him his dexterity bonus to AC so that's less terrible than it could be.


see that is kind of my point^^^ i can't think of a way in pathfinder to get that kind of power (i mean its prolly a good thing, not that anyone takes pun puns seriously as a encounter) maybe there is and i just don't know it?


No, no, no you are thinking in the wrong terms, try thinking in terms of "my character has an invisible bullet proof shield that stops anything you can think your character can do"

you know, like when you were seven


lol I suspose you have a point there but I thought the challenge was building it with the current rules and just exploiting the heck out of RAW.


Well, "The Most Important Rule" is that the game is ours, and the rules can be changed at our tables. (PFS doesn't count)

So depending on how you take that... XD

Scarab Sages

I'm inclined to agree that a player-character can't be a Mary Sue, because players don't have total control over what happens to their characters. But it is possible for a player to try to have a Mary Sue character, by whining and/or emotionally blackmailing the GM into giving the player what they want.

In the OP's case, the GM for whatever reason gave the players a lot of power, which may qualify as almost Mary Sue-like if the things the characters gained were things the players had asked for or stated as their goals at the beginning of the game. But if they were just random things the GM did as rewards, then I don't think that counts as Mary Sue-ing those characters.

If anyone has concern that a character is a Mary Sue, there's a quiz you can take to identify Mary Sue-ish characteristics.

http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm


And considering their situation, of course. XD The best explanation I heard was this: "If you make Frodo a Jedi, then you should give Sauron the Death Star." Basically, a character's power can be at pretty much any level - what matters are the challenges they face.


A character's greatest challenge is overcoming who they are?


Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.

How do you ROLL a 20???


phantom1592 wrote:

I don't actually think it's possible to have a Mary Sue in an RPG. You can have characters who are OP and Min Maxers... people who aren't so great at the RP... but the Players don't really have the power to create a Mary Sue. Players are still bound to the dice rolls.

You need DM Fiat to accomplish that. We had one DM NPC character who traveled with us for an adventurer who the entire plot revolved around and she had all the answers and solved the problems and killed the big bad despite being the 'helpless princess' trope. She was a new DM so I cut some slack there... but that wasn't a very fun game.

Sure you can. In fact I'd wager that half of all DMPCs are Mary Sues. One reason why they are so bad.


DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.
How do you ROLL a 20???

Yahtzee (houserule).


Trekkie90909 wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.
How do you ROLL a 20???
Yahtzee (houserule).

??? You get five dice? ??


DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.
How do you ROLL a 20???
Yahtzee (houserule).
??? You get five dice? ??

Usually just 4 (although we change things up frequently, I don't think anyone's done roll 5 dice); roll all the same number = yahtzee in this system.


Terquem wrote:
A character's greatest challenge is overcoming who they are?

This concept applies to a lot more players than one might expect, heheheh. I've seen it so many times I laughed out loud literally instead of figuratively when I read it. So prevalent that I actually would consider it a relevant and... eloquent way of defining a sue/stu.

What's the best way to get a sue/stu to walk into your trap? Shine a light where you want them to stand and make sure the light is 'lime colored'... They can't resist.

Adds another layer of nuance to why we love 'GREEN FLAME!!!'

It's lime green.

All are welcome... Step into the liiiiiight!

People always give Palladium a hard time for being 'gonzo and imbalanced'... but palladium never had a Pun Pun. From Pun Pun's point of view, Rifts is a 'low magic' campaign.

Shadow Lodge

To be honest though, Pun Pun required the DM to sign off on or handwave a few vital aspects of the build to function, like havine Divine Rank 0, which isn't the same thing as not having any Divine Rank,being a special Kobald, and certain interpritafions of spells, and infinite time.


Trekkie90909 wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.
How do you ROLL a 20???
Yahtzee (houserule).
??? You get five dice? ??
Usually just 4 (although we change things up frequently, I don't think anyone's done roll 5 dice); roll all the same number = yahtzee in this system.

So, you could get a 24 with all sixes?


@DrDeth

Generating Ability Scores, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook wrote:
Standard: Roll 4d6, discard the lowest die result, and add the three remaining results together. Record this total and repeat the process until six numbers are generated. Assign these totals to your ability scores as you see fit. This method is less random than Classic and tends to create characters with above-average ability scores.


Trekkie90909 wrote:

@DrDeth

Generating Ability Scores, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook wrote:
Standard: Roll 4d6, discard the lowest die result, and add the three remaining results together. Record this total and repeat the process until six numbers are generated. Assign these totals to your ability scores as you see fit. This method is less random than Classic and tends to create characters with above-average ability scores.

Yeah? What does that have to do with ROLLING a 20? You cant ROLL a 20 with that process.

And altho you can GET a 20 by rolling a 18- and adding a racial +2,- you still cant get three 20's.

I think maybe his system had something like a bonus if all dice come up with the same number. But he hasnt explained it yet.


this is getting really off-topic:
Yeah... that's generally what one means when one talks about rolling a Yahtzee... roll all the same number and you get a 20.


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4d6 ⇒ (5, 6, 3, 3) = 17 Hm.
4d5 ⇒ (5, 1, 5, 1) = 12 Dammit.
4d4 ⇒ (2, 3, 1, 2) = 8 Arg!
4d3 ⇒ (2, 2, 3, 1) = 8 Come on, Cleaver needs a new pair of skill points...
4d2 ⇒ (1, 1, 1, 2) = 5 So close!
4d1 ⇒ (1, 1, 1, 1) = 4 YAHTZEE!


I'm more facepalming that a thread intended to be about tropish characters turned into a debate about the semantics of what tropism, Mary Sues, and Gary Stus meant or qualified as.


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If you are going to discuss/argue about something it's a good idea to make sure everyone is using the same definitions.


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I think we can all agree that Mary Sues and Gary Stues are all powergamers, and powergamers, as we all agree, are universally awful.


Kobold Cleaver wrote:
I think we can all agree that Mary Sues and Gary Stues are all powergamers, and powergamers, as we all agree, are universally awful.

Half the players on this board could be classed as a 'powergamer' in some form.


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I contest that definition!


DrDeth wrote:
Trekkie90909 wrote:
A friend once rolled 3 20s, an 18, a 16, and a 14 for stats. He played a dragon-born sorcerer in 3.5; it was the best tank, dps, face, and caster in the party.
How do you ROLL a 20???

Try using a d20.


[tongue in cheek]

I could beat Pun Pun, quite easily.

At least for one adventure, but not entirely. AS the DM, I can just grab the summary sheet and burn it. No more Pun Pun.

and they say DM's aren't more powerful than the deities in a campaign...

Hah.

DM's Rule all!!!

Wait a second there....

does that make the DM a Powergamer and hence we are universally awful players????

[/tongue in cheek]


DrDeth wrote:
phantom1592 wrote:

I don't actually think it's possible to have a Mary Sue in an RPG. You can have characters who are OP and Min Maxers... people who aren't so great at the RP... but the Players don't really have the power to create a Mary Sue. Players are still bound to the dice rolls.

You need DM Fiat to accomplish that. We had one DM NPC character who traveled with us for an adventurer who the entire plot revolved around and she had all the answers and solved the problems and killed the big bad despite being the 'helpless princess' trope. She was a new DM so I cut some slack there... but that wasn't a very fun game.

Sure you can. In fact I'd wager that half of all DMPCs are Mary Sues. One reason why they are so bad.

???

Not sure if your agreeing with me or disagreeing with me... I pointed out the only way to do that is with DM fiat. You need to have full control of the game to be a Mary Sue. If you're just a player... then you really don't have the power to hand wave all the challenges and be the prettiest, strongest, most favorite person in the whole universe. The dice don't let you.

DM's can do it... the best players can do is power game. But even the best power game/Op builds have weaknesses for the DM and other players to exploit.


phantom1592 wrote:
DrDeth wrote:
phantom1592 wrote:

I don't actually think it's possible to have a Mary Sue in an RPG. You can have characters who are OP and Min Maxers... people who aren't so great at the RP... but the Players don't really have the power to create a Mary Sue. Players are still bound to the dice rolls.

You need DM Fiat to accomplish that. We had one DM NPC character who traveled with us for an adventurer who the entire plot revolved around and she had all the answers and solved the problems and killed the big bad despite being the 'helpless princess' trope. She was a new DM so I cut some slack there... but that wasn't a very fun game.

Sure you can. In fact I'd wager that half of all DMPCs are Mary Sues. One reason why they are so bad.

???

Not sure if your agreeing with me or disagreeing with me... I pointed out the only way to do that is with DM fiat. You need to have full control of the game to be a Mary Sue. If you're just a player... then you really don't have the power to hand wave all the challenges and be the prettiest, strongest, most favorite person in the whole universe. The dice don't let you.

DM's can do it... the best players can do is power game. But even the best power game/Op builds have weaknesses for the DM and other players to exploit.

I disagee with this line " I don't actually think it's possible to have a Mary Sue in an RPG. "

Like I said, the DM certainly can and has done so with DMPCs.

Players, OTOH have a really hard time doing a full Mary Sue.

So, I am both agreeing and disagreeing, I agree with some parts and disagree with others.


Maybe the reason a lot of people dislike high-level wizards/insertyourpreferredfullcasterhere, is because of that effortlessness that was mentioned above. At a certain point, a wizard becomes a character who can in fact solve every problem that goes their way. Unless the player very deliberately "Gives the other kids a turn" so to speak. That's about as Mary-sue as you can get, at least in terms of abilities. Doesn't say anything about the characters behavior, of course.


The characters mentioned in the original post are all anime stereotypes. Number 3 is half the girls in anime.

I did once accidentally play a Mary Sue. She managed to one-shot AO, ascend to overgod, and reshape the FR universe. In my defense, the GM really should not have allowed me to roll at all.


137ben wrote:
Also, obligatory links to Trekin's what am I supposed to do thread, and its continuations, The SUE Files: Part II and Part III.

Ahhh, good ol' Sephiroth Cullen, Most Obnoxious GMPC Ever, and his equally insufferable creator, 'Marty'. One of my favorite stories.


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I've had a player who only played Mary Sue characters.
Some time after we met her, he told us of one of her favorite characters ever. It was in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse game. While everybody else were playing werewolves, she played a Get of Fenris KINFOLK. She loved to tell stories as how everybody in the game loved her character, and how they cared for her and treated her like an equal as she was able to fight a lot better than true werewolves and how they will always come to her for help. The way she was telling us the story it looked like werewolves were inoffensive puppies of which she had to take care.
The first game that she played with us was a Dark Heresy campaign that we had been playing for months. The GM gave her a pariah NPC that we had with us and who had an interesting love/hate relationship with my psychic PC as they were both disliked and feared in the group. She turned the character into a obnoxious witch who treated everybody badly and was always making remarks on how the other characters should kill mine or allow her to kill her.
As she was a new player we all tried to be nice to her and forego her behaviour. But she was convinced that everybody in the game loved her character and that they were forced to do it no matter how badly she treated them.
So one day she and I were having a private talk and she tells me:
«I'm glad that you don't hate me. I was afraid that you would be jealous because everybody loves my character because she's lovely and everybody hates yours so much. Specially because your boyfriend's character likes me better than you»
I had to put all my efforts in not laughing at her in the face, as my boyfriend and I were playing deliberately characters who didn't get along well, the other players had already told me that they were growing tired of her and my character was actually not made to be a likable person being kinda emotionless.
Then she created a PC for a Dragonlance campaign I had going on. It was a centaur barbarian who dumped intelligence, and even though everybody in the game saw him as a murderous psycho who tried to handicap negotiations by attacking possible allies she kept saying over and over again that we should all love him because he was a lovable big kid with a big heart and no malice. Each time somebody said something about him not being perfect she almost started to cry and when I told her she should change the alignment of her PC to CN because it fitted him better than CG she was bewildered.
I have lost the count of how many times I heard her say: «Why don't you all love my character? He's so cute! He deserves some love!» All the time while talking about how other characters in the game (who in her mind were taking away her spotlight) sucked and deserved to be awfully killed.

Sovereign Court

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That doesn't really sound like a mary sue character. More like a player quirk.


She was both. She wanted to make all her characters perfect, and lovable, and strong, and adorably vulnerable, and they were all idealized parts of herself. When everybody else didn't treat her character like he was the most special and lovable thing on the world she had childish tantrums.

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