May 07, 2013 Neutral

[Zambee]

...outside of time and space. It touches an infinite number of parallel universes. And it resets time at the end of every run. Our FMK have been there for over a million days (nearly 3000 years), but when they exit, it will be at about the time they left. Time is irrelevant here. There is no waiting room.

(Though it does make me wonder how Psimax is able to perfectly know everything that could happen in the Maze when there's at least one new group in every run. Okay, not necessarily every run. But just about.)

I'm thinking that for the vast majority of his runs, all the alts in the maze have been the same ones. I assume this is because Psymax would learn what he could in the time it usually takes a group to reach the treasure room, and then he'd get there himself ahead of them and kill them so they can't win the maze. He'd maybe even destroy the keys like he did earlier. Then he'd spend the rest of that run learning more about the other alts and the maze, or kill everyone else/wait for them to kill each other, and then do something that would make the maze reset, like kill himself or somehow make it impossible for the maze to be completed like fuse the door or something. He could then repeat the process over again until he has learned of every possible variable.

[Pablo]

There was that analysis of intention and action morality, and the assumption that Psimax is Good by intention morality.
I agree with the analysis, but not with Psimax' categorization. He claims he's good, but that's just rationalization - removing everybody else in the maze from existence, with or without their consent (and actually against their declared will) is evil incarnate. His arguments that it's okay to do as he's trying to are just weaselling around that, and don't hold water.

Hi!

The way that Psimax describes his objectives and actions leads me to characterize him as a psychopath ("Psychomax?"). In general, the behavior of psychopaths in the context of society reflects a type of behavior that I would characterize in a D&D world as "Chaotic Evil."

Just my $0.02!

[Reads_Forums]

...outside of time and space. It touches an infinite number of parallel universes. And it resets time at the end of every run. Our FMK have been there for over a million days (nearly 3000 years), but when they exit, it will be at about the time they left. Time is irrelevant here. There is no waiting room.

(Though it does make me wonder how Psimax is able to perfectly know everything that could happen in the Maze when there's at least one new group in every run. Okay, not necessarily every run. But just about.)

I'm thinking that for the vast majority of his runs, all the alts in the maze have been the same ones. I assume this is because Psymax would learn what he could in the time it usually takes a group to reach the treasure room, and then he'd get there himself ahead of them and kill them so they can't win the maze. He'd maybe even destroy the keys like he did earlier. Then he'd spend the rest of that run learning more about the other alts and the maze, or kill everyone else/wait for them to kill each other, and then do something that would make the maze reset, like kill himself or somehow make it impossible for the maze to be completed like fuse the door or something. He could then repeat the process over again until he has learned of every possible variable.

Or, in the first runs after resorting to destroying the counter, after it reached 2 million and realised something was seriously wrong, noone wins. He keeps observing, not interfering and no one beats the tower room, he watches and all that happens is pain suffering and death, over and over. If the MoM is some twisted pay per view arena for the gods which no one has left in 2 million tries, that would somewhat explain his "existence is pain" philosophy. After 800+ runs he might well have lost his original goals and now only seeks oblivion to end it all.

Our FMK aren't so hopelessly outmatched that I'd think they were million to one shots at winning this, this hasn't been a run that they always rolled 20s with every opponent rolling 1s. I'm suspicious of the 2 million tries, our FMK don't suck THAT badly, and psimax has only possibly interfered in the last 800 (and from his dialogue it seems they didn't need interfering with as they die in the tower room). Assuming it's psimax stopping all the groups seems to be false, our group was losing a ridiculous amount with no reason to assume they were much than other groups without psimax's intervention. Our group don't suck that badly to assume they are the only ones up to 2 million.

If the tower room is now actually unwinnable and the only way to win is to cheat, without the oblivion holes, our FMK would never escape, the effect of seeing 2 million was wow we suck, there would be no change if that was 20 million, 200 million.

If it is a gods plaything, it's not unreasonable they "advertised" it, putting the information that it's a wonderful dungeon crawl with a no lose insurance mechanic out there to attract the flies to the honey trap.

I suspect thunt isn't doing anything more complex than psimax is a 1d villain without explaining his motivation, I just think there could be more to him than that. His character has so much potential, in a way I think he deserves more than being one dimensional. I'd be pleasantly surprised if he was given more depth than say, goblinslayer or Mr. Fingers but I'm not holding out hope. This arc is coming to a close, there's not really enough time to pull a huge twist.

[willpell]

If it is a gods plaything, it's not unreasonable they "advertised" it, putting the information that it's a wonderful dungeon crawl with a no lose insurance mechanic out there to attract the flies to the honey trap.

Damned if that isn't a very interesting theory. If that's not the truth here, it's definitely an idea worth stealing.

[Marnath]

So is this where Kin decides to take a level in wizard? her Yuan-ti abilities may be supressed, but nothing's keeping her from taking class levels (We've seen at least one Kin with levels in a spellcaster class, and who knows, she may manifest that dragonmark from archerkin as her level 1 feat...)

A 7-HD Yuan-Ti Halfblood (or for that matter a 4-HD Purebreed) doesn't get a feat when taking its first class level, apart from bonus feats (and the only classes I can think of which give any real choice of a bonus feat are Fighter, Psion/Erudite, and Psychic Warrior).

You are wrong. Feats are determined by your total hitdice, whether they be racial or class dice. For some reason I can't find it on the online version, but all creatures recieve a feat at 1st hitdie, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and so on every three hitdice. The sample half-blood yuan-ti in the monster manual took combat expertise, dodge, and improved initiative as it's feats. Only alertness and blindfight are bonus feats given by the Half-blood Yuan-ti race. If you were to create your own yuan-ti half-blood, you would be allowed to select different feats for each of the first three, but you would not be able to exchange alertness or blindfight for any other feats.

*edit: Unless you meant that they do not get another feat at first character level, in which case you'd be correct as they would have 8 hitdice. They could still have chosen other feats for their racial dice.

[WearsHats]

Gold and cheese fondue were my guesses, as well. I asked Thunt about it on Twitter. He said it's mudhoney.

Out of interest, why that specifically? I mean, what made you think he'd answer?

I was curious. I was also amused by the thought of cheese fondue. And worried about the possibility of gold, since the melting point is really high. (Just looked it up. It's about 1000c/2000f. Interestingly, it's 1337 kelvin.) I figured there was at least a chance he'd answer. Even if not, maybe he'd laugh at the idea of it being cheese. And it couldn't hurt to ask. Worst that would happen would be him ignoring the question.

Oh, and for the record, his answer was just "'Tis mudhoney." I'm the one who dug up the pages in which it had appeared. Incidentally, it turns out that "mudhoney" is also the name of a band in... Seattle, I think it was. Took me a minute or two to find the Goblins pages.

[willpell]

You are wrong.

Feats are determined by your total hitdice, whether they be racial or class dice. For some reason I can't find it on the online version, but all creatures recieve a feat at 1st hitdie, 3rd, 6th, 9th, and so on every three hitdice. The sample half-blood yuan-ti in the monster manual took combat expertise, dodge, and improved initiative as it's feats. Only alertness and blindfight are bonus feats given by the Half-blood Yuan-ti race. If you were to create your own yuan-ti half-blood, you would be allowed to select different feats for each of the first three, but you would not be able to exchange alertness or blindfight for any other feats.

Yes, Marnath, I know all of this. It does not make me incorrect or mistaken, much less wrong.

*edit: Unless you meant that they do not get another feat at first character level, in which case you'd be correct as they would have 8 hitdice. They could still have chosen other feats for their racial dice.

But if one of those was a Dragonmark represented by a tattoo identical to Sapphire's, we would have seen it by now, when she was in GS's slavegirl outfit. The original comment was specifically that she could gain such a tattoo, not that she could have always had it since the moment she was born...since, lacking any D&D rules for children, we can only assume freshly hatched Yuan-Ti newborns have 7HD and a +5 level adjustment, and do not change in any meaningful way until they accumulate 78,000 XP.

[Strawberrycocoa]

Sessine is right, he's monolouging. He destined to fail. No doubt about it. Someone tell me about a villian who's succeeding in ANYTHING they were doing, no matter how small, while blabbering their reason for wanting world domination/world destruction/revenge/whatever it may be.

I know a villain who monologued AND pulled off his evil plan perfectly. A Spoiler tag for Watchmen, even though it's old hat by now.

► Show Spoiler

Ozymandias, in Watchmen.

He details his plans to, basically, trick the world into thinking they are under alien invasion to coerce the nations of the world to band together in peace against a common enemy. He does this by creating a large-scale weapon of mass destruction powerful enough to annihilate New York almost entirely. Once under the belief that the world is under attack by external forces, humanity will unify in peace against their perceived attackers.

When the heroes ask him, "This is madness! When were you even planning to do this?" the villain responds with one of my favorite lines in anything ever. "'Do it?' I am not some trade serial villain. Do you honestly think I would give you the intimate details of my masterwork if you had ANY chance of stopping it from happening? I already did it thirty-five minutes ago."

Cut to the city of New York being obliterated and nearly all of it's citizens killed in one single blast.

[Marnath]

Yes, Marnath, I know all of this. It does not make me incorrect or mistaken, much less wrong.

All of those words mean the same thing. Wrong is not a more injurious word than the others.

But if one of those was a Dragonmark represented by a tattoo identical to Sapphire's, we would have seen it by now, when she was in GS's slavegirl outfit. The original comment was specifically that she could gain such a tattoo, not that she could have always had it since the moment she was born...since, lacking any D&D rules for children, we can only assume freshly hatched Yuan-Ti newborns have 7HD and a +5 level adjustment, and do not change in any meaningful way until they accumulate 78,000 XP.

Or maybe it's just a mundane tattoo, and not a feat from a campaign specific book. It could be a dragonmark, but normally yuan-ti do not qualify for the racial requirements that are required to take one. Possibly it is a magic tattoo, or a psionic tattoo.

[willpell]

Yes, Marnath, I know all of this. It does not make me incorrect or mistaken, much less wrong.

All of those words mean the same thing. Wrong is not a more injurious word than the others.

You do not remember the disclaimer in my signature on GiantITP? Where others see interchangeable synonyms, I see a continuum of subtle nuance. To me, "incorrect" means "you have appropriated inaccurate facts, please seek new information", and "mistaken" means "to err is human, and you just demonstrated the principle; might be time to try again there, friend." Both very friendly things to say. But "wrong" is the opposite of "right", and both of those terms have extremely strong connotations of moral worth; to say a person, not even just their ideas but them as a whole, is "wrong" is like saying they are a blight on the face of the world, a symbol of everything that should be opposed with all spiritual vehemence.

Or maybe it's just a mundane tattoo, and not a feat from a campaign specific book. It could be a dragonmark, but normally yuan-ti do not qualify for the racial requirements that are required to take one. Possibly it is a magic tattoo, or a psionic tattoo.

Shrug...that wasn't my theory in the first place, you'll recall.

[ActsStupidly]

Okay so I just skimmed as I am very hungry right now(pizza I ordered is late due to mine own error) but there are some points I noticed and my mind latched onto that I must respond to but I don't have the patience to hunt them down right now to quote them so I'll just list what I caught on to:

1) Someone asked why Psimax doesn't just make his own plane to destroy himself:

First off, not possible, at least in Thunt's world. Psimax would die long before he had the power to even consider such a task. The ability to make a plane, even if it is just a Demi-plane(meaning very small at most the size of house), is exclusively in the "Paragon teir" level range(to use a 4ed term for lack of a better way). Even then the spell Create demi-plane, Lesser is a level 7 spell in the PATHFINDER rule set(which is much more lenient to character power and is NOT D&D) the only Wizard's made spells I can think of the can do this are Wish(your playing with fire there friend) and Genesis, both level 9 magical effects, meaning only a level 17?-20 character can cast them. "High-level" in Thuntverse is level 7+. Second, Psimax is a psion, creating a plane isn't even on their powers list. Wizmax could probably do it 50 years from now though.

Finally it could be said that it HAS to be the Maze as it is the only plane which he knows about having the ability to exist outside EVERY other alternate universe. If he were to do it in a demiplane he would still have to calculate the effects the infinite other realities had on his demiplane, as by its nature a demiplane is connected to the outside world and effects and is effected by it. In short, even a demiplane is still a part of the larger world.

2) I also noticed some squabble over Psimax's alignment. As a DM I would say he his indeed neutral. Mordikain, the world's most powerful wizard in the Greyhawk world setting can and DOES blow up entire cities full of innocent people. He does these things after careful study of the city, what would happen to world without it, even spending the time to get to know and make friends with the people he's considering killing. Actually to make more of a point of this, the man even dabbles in demon magic, something that in particular to his setting is considered to be unforgivably evil. His alignment is listed as adamantly true neutral, this is because he actively does not take sides, he does everything(much like Psimax) with a cold calculating attitude. To this man, much like psimax, no human or any other sentient being is greater than another and all life is measured equally. It should be noted that Mordikain does everything he can to mitigate the amount of life lost whenever he does something like my first example and only does so if it would save a much larger amount of people/reduce their suffering.

(as a side note, Mordikain is one of my favorite antagonists for Greyhawk games, as by his nature he puts the players in a very difficult moral bind and creates a much more interesting plot, I think, than the fight against the evil demi-god Iuz or the dark demon worship cults.)

[willpell]

Actually to make more of a point of this, the man even dabbles in demon magic, something that in particular to his setting is considered to be unforgivably evil. His alignment is listed as adamantly true neutral, this is because he actively does not take sides, he does everything(much like Psimax) with a cold calculating attitude.

Well, Mordenkainen was Gary Gygax's player character in his own campaign, so I really don't know if he can be considered a fair example of much....

[Liesmith]

All of those words mean the same thing. Wrong is not a more injurious word than the others.

You do not remember the disclaimer in my signature on GiantITP? Where others see interchangeable synonyms, I see a continuum of subtle nuance. To me, "incorrect" means "you have appropriated inaccurate facts, please seek new information", and "mistaken" means "to err is human, and you just demonstrated the principle; might be time to try again there, friend." Both very friendly things to say. But "wrong" is the opposite of "right", and both of those terms have extremely strong connotations of moral worth; to say a person, not even just their ideas but them as a whole, is "wrong" is like saying they are a blight on the face of the world, a symbol of everything that should be opposed with all spiritual vehemence.

I agree with willpell. There's no such thing as a synonym. Definition and connotation are two critical pieces of a word's meaning; a definition may be identical for two words in a dictionary, but the connotation can't be so easily quantified.

Back on topic:

While folks have certainly been putting out a wide variation of theories, it sounds like more focus has been on Minmax making a psion-kebab with Oblivious. Tarol had linked to Pan and Yala's first appearance, which lead me to re-reading this page: http://www.goblinscomic.com/09172010-2/

Psimax, you dun goofed. I think Kin is going to give Psimax a broadhead catheter, even if she has to crawl a few miles through her own splishk'd tail to do so. The only option for him now is to run away.

[Linkcharge]

Where others see interchangeable synonyms, I see a continuum of subtle nuance. To me, "incorrect" means "you have appropriated inaccurate facts, please seek new information", and "mistaken" means "to err is human, and you just demonstrated the principle; might be time to try again there, friend." Both very friendly things to say. But "wrong" is the opposite of "right", and both of those terms have extremely strong connotations of moral worth; to say a person, not even just their ideas but them as a whole, is "wrong" is like saying they are a blight on the face of the world, a symbol of everything that should be opposed with all spiritual vehemence.

Going from "Try again, friend" to "You're a blight on the face of the world" is subtle nuance? What planet are you living on?

While you may have a point in saying that synonyms are not entirely identical, this is so far off base, I don't know what to say. Not only is it nothing remotely like subtle, but it also uses definitions that are entirely unconventional. You can't expect other people to be mind-readers and know what private definitions you're going by. The substance of the communication doesn't depend on what you think the word means, but on the meaning understood by the person saying the word.

It's fair enough to say that you understand the word in a different manner, but it's not the responsibility of the other person to adhere to that, especially not before you've given your explanation. Communication relies on commonly shared definitions. If you decide to change the definitions in your mind, that's your responsibility, not anyone else's.

[willpell]

Going from "Try again, friend" to "You're a blight on the face of the world" is subtle nuance?

Precisely. One slip of the tongue separates fraternity from mutual loathing, if not murder.

What planet are you living on?

"For this is hell, nor am I out of it." --Mephistopheles in Goethe's "Faust".

Not only is it nothing remotely like subtle, but it also uses definitions that are entirely unconventional.

Which I made clear in the aforementioned disclaimer on my old GiantITP profile. Marnath had been there; I assumed he remembered. Admittedly that was a tad egocentric of me.