Sorry for the necro, but I figured this was an appropriate place to post this. I'm pretty sure this is the most recent version of Monty I have saved:
Goals: To create a group of characters to whom nothing bad can ever happen (ever). This is done without using setting-specific material, form-altering effects, wizards.com material, or unupdated 3.0.
References:
OmniscificerTemporal Workshop, Neo-TerminatorPun-PunThe TerminatorObviously, this concept borrows heavily from the Omniscificer and the Neo-Terminator
Premise: Any challenger is born after the trio ascends.
New Trick:
The Dorje of Time RegressionIt's not really groundbreaking, but it's worth pointing out. Mini-Pun (Pun's clone) needs to be able to manifest Time Regression many times. He can't afford the XP, so he uses a dorje with 10 power points . When Mini-Pun manifests Time Regression from the dorje, it does not cost him XP (the XP cost was paid when the dorje was created). It also does not use up the pp from the dorje (OK, it does, but the pp are restored when the power takes effect). This is because the pp cost happens when the power is manifested, but all events in that round (except the XP cost, which is circumvented by using a dorje) are undone. Essentially, Mini-Pun can manifest Time Regression at will. The DC 20 Use Psionic Device check needed to do so (since Time Regression is a nomad power) is easy for Mini-Pun.
Pun
Neraph Seer 19/Exemplar 1
Leadership
Undead Leadership
EK(Fission)
EK(Fusion)
EK(Mind Switch)
Skill Focus (Use Psionic Device)
17 ranks in Use Psionic Device
Powers: Metafaculty, Psionic True Seeing
Bob
Warforged Nomad 7/Metamind 10
Psicrystal Affinity
Powers: Temporal Reiteration
Frank
Necropolitan Human Wizard 17
Spells: Precipitate Complete Breach, Time Stop, Greater Arcane Sight
Items
Dorje of Time Regression (with 20 power points)
Part 1: Creating Mini-Pun (This is the important setup)
The trio travel to the Far Realms through a complete planar breach.
Pun manifests Fission, creating Mini-Pun.
Mini-Pun manifests Fusion with Bob, then again with Frank. Mini-Pun manifests Mind Switch with a Far Realms native, then kills the native (in Mini-Pun's body). Mini-Pun activates Font of Power. Every round, Mini-Pun will manifest Temporal Reiteration to keep the effects (currently Font of Power, Mind Switch, Fission, and Fusions) going.
Pun returns to the Material Plane. As a non-Far Realms native, he returns at the time he left. He will simply continue his life as normal. Designate this time (in Material time) as round 0.
Mini-Pun casts Time Stop. In the Time Stop, he casts Greater Arcane Sight and manifests Psionic True Seeing.
Part 2: Time-scrubbing (This is complicated. I know.)
0. Let N be a large integer.
1. Mini-Pun casts Precipitate Complete Breach to the Abyss. Because Mini-Pun originated in the Far Realms, the breach opens to a random time in the material timeline. If the breach does not open to round 0, he manifests Time Regression to before he cast Precipitate Complete Breach. Repeat until he has a breach to round 0. Mini-Pun steps through the breach (leaving it open behind him). Call this breach Breach 1.
2. He steps through Breach 1 to the Far Realms. Outside the are of Breach 1, Mini-Pun casts Precipitate Complete Breach to the Astral. Call it Breach 2. If the breach does not open to some time after the last time Mini-Pun visited the Astral (initially any time after round 0), he manifests Time Regression to before he precipitated Breach 2 and tries again. If, after N tries, he does not reach a later time, instead go to step 8.
3. Mini-Pun travels through the complete planar breach to the Astral.
4. Mini-Pun uses Metafaculty on Pun to check whether anything bad has happened to him. He casts Gate (planar travel version) to a place near Pun and looks through it with Greater Arcane Sight and Psionic True Seeing, just to make sure. If anything bad has happened to Pun, go to step 8.
5. Pun is safe and sound at this time.
6. Let N = N^2
7. Pun manifests Time Regression back to before he precipitated Breach 2. This has no substantial effect on the Material timeline, but it restores the spell slots and XP/material costs from the spells. Return to step 2.
8. Mini-Pun manifests Time Regression until he is back at the end of step 1. This rewinds all action in the Material timeline after round 0. Return to the end of step 1. (note that this means Mini-Pun will start the process over, beginning with checking after round 0)
9. There is no step 9.
10. Profit.
The end result is that nothing bad can ever happen to Pun. He lives until the end of time.
Frequently Asked QuestionsHuh?The idea is that Mini-Pun samples the timeline from ascension time to the end of time. If he sees something he doesn't like, he Regresses and makes time try again. Since there is a nonzero probability that nothing bad will ever happen to Pun, Mini-Pun will eventually see such a timeline. This timeline he will not erase, but let unfold.
What does this have to do with Pun-Pun?In addition to being a good defensive tactic on its own, this trick can aid Pun-Pun greatly. Pun-Pun should do this right after he ascends, with a few modifications:
a) Skip some steps - Some of the steps are there in order to get abilities that Pun-Pun already has. He can skip those.
b) No need for multiple characters - with Manipulate Form, clones are more than sufficient.
c) Divine Senses - Pun-Pun's Mini-Pun can augment his senses with Portfolio Sense and Divine Recall.
Couldn't the Neo-Terminator still kill Pun?Tleilaxu_Ghola raised this concern about an earlier version of Pun (and he was correct).
Say you arrive in the round in which a neo-terminator has erased the trio from existance. You run into a contradiction when you say that you could even view such an event because the cause of you arriving at that moment (and viewing that event) is non-existant. So essentially this technique defies the laws of causality - you cannot react to an event which would erase you.
To counter this problem, I added a failsafe to the procedure - if, within N tries, Mini-Pun does not reach a later time, he rewinds time back to round 0 and starts over. This works because no matter how many times Mini-Pun opens a Planar Breach, he will never get one that leads to a time after the Neo-Terminator does his thing. This is because there is no consistent timeline running from Mini-Pun's existence to after the Neo-Terminator's attack.
When does Mini-Pun stop?Never. He keeps visiting later and later times. The sequence of times that Mini-Pun visits is an infinite sequence that, with probability 1, approaches the end of time. This is not a contradiction because (from Mini-Pun's perspective) it takes infinite subjective time.
But then won't the failsafe eventually kick in, just by random chance, even if there is no Neo-Terminator?There is nonzero probability that the failsafe will never kick in, due to the rapidly increasing number of trials allowed. This is because the time remaining in the universe decreases (on average) geometrically, while the number of trials allowed increases faster than geometrically. In finitely many tries (with probability 1) Mini-Pun will never accidentally trigger the failsafe.