Quantifying Pun-Pun

[Harkness]

Hey everyone!

I found this thread by Piggy Knowles about Epic Skills, and it got me thinking about broken beyond Epic levels in DnD.

I'm new to 3.5e, (played a couple of 5e campaigns) but I recently found the incredibly broken Pun-Pun build, which basically offers all spell-like abilities and potentially unlimited ability scores. (Only the DM can really break it, if he allowed it in the first place).

I was thinking about the examples of what ability scores mean in this page here.

That led to me starting with some math, which normally I'm not into, and I wanted to get your opinions on the "equivalent" examples of completely broken levels of stats.
(TD;LR: I'm trying to assign stat modifier examples leading up to the broken example of +10,000.)

For intelligence, based on the description I've found that if you multiply the score by 10, it matches up somewhat with IQ. (i.e. a 10 is 100IQ or an average person, whereas a 20 is 200; Stephen Hawking level.)

This led to me thinking of the highest real world equivalent, and if we assume a "level 20" human in our world is the absolute best, and they get the 5 ability score points with leveling up that far, that gives us a 25 as the highest human intelligence possible.

Let's say, for example, that Da Vinci had a total Intelligence score of 25. (Since he effectively invented a crude working helicopter prototype 400 years before the proper version, benefiting from technological advances at the time Since he designed a very limited workable precursor to the modern diving suit. For the benefit of updating the rest of this post without scrapping it entirely, I'll assume that, at the maximum of ability, this level could conceptualize something 300 years ahead of your time, but only build a workable model 150 years ahead of your time.)

To accomplish this feat, let's assume he had 23 skill ranks in both Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) and the Craft skill. This leads us to a simple equation to find the DC he had to meet;
Da Vinci Int modifier+Knowledge (Engineering)+Craft skill+D20 (Natural 20) = Scuba, functional model 400 years ahead of it's time.
The numbers for this; 7 +23+23+roll 20= 73DC check.

Now, that's not exactly Epic, but considering the broken levels Epic has bear with me, we'll get there and beyond.

For every +73 we have in our modifier, let's say we add 150 more years to the level of technology we can create ahead of time. Let's assume anything less than half our years score is perfectly functional, and everything at the top is a crude, limited version based on what we have at the time. So a teleporter wouldn't be as effective as an actual teleporter from 12,019, because we're limited in the crude environmental level of technology.

This means that at roughly Epic level, with a modifier of +146, we can create technology 300 years more advanced than current technology. In a medieval setting like DnD (mid 1300's) this would be equivalent to creating crude versions of technology from 1600, or effective technology from the 1450's like the printing press.

Not impressive to a high (or mid tier) wizard, but with the use of magical ink it could be used to mass print magical spells, assuming a concentration component wasn't involved.

Now let's go higher.

The following summaries depend on your opinion of how fast technology would advance. Assuming we're starting from our age, maintain our current rate of technology building, going from the first airplane to landing on the moon in 57 years, I think this is fairly realistic.

Int score of 1,510 (+730)= Inventing functionally working machines/advances 150 years ahead of their time. (i.e. More efficient space travel, improved solar batteries, Ultra-realistic, extremely customisable VR, etc)
Int score of 15,010 (+7,300)= Inventing working machines 1,500 years ahead of their time. (i.e. cold fusion reactors, FTL space travel, Ultra-realistic, extremely customisable VR, etc)
Int score of 20,010 (+10,000)= Inventing working machines 15,000 years ahead of their time.


The method to calculate the Intelligence score into how many hundreds of years advanced your technology would be is:
Int modifier/73 x75=years ahead of it's time for a perfectly functional device, or Int modifier/73 x150=years ahead of it's time for a crude, limited version.

As per noob's suggestion, you could just have a large number of people with +10 to technology work together to gain a bonus of +3300 for every 600 people, which subverts the necessity of an arbitrarily high Intelligence score.

That's all I've got for now, but I'd love to hear your thoughts, if I got anything wrong, or if you have a different opinion on what that level of intelligence looks like. (EDIT: I've already been corrected once, so it's likely I've missed something else as well. The "working technology" level is very speculative, but unless there's an algorithm for calculating actual technological growth, that's the best I can do.)

I'm willing to try and look into other stats, since Strength is fairly easy to calculate, and Charisma is interesting to look at (imagine bluffing Reality; the only enemy at Epic levels of Diplomacy is your DM.)

Thanks for reading!

Harkness

[noob]

let us say we have 600 people with +10 to technology going into a room and all using aid another it makes a total of approximatively 3300 bonus to the check of whichever is the main person.
The helicopter da vinci "invented" was not functioning.
In fact the first man powered helicopter that was made did not have a design similar at all to the one of da vinci.(and was made a long time after engine powered helicopters)
It would be like waiting 2000 years saying "hey that kid 2000 years ago told we could make a time travelling machine that is just a box and here with our chronium allow we just have to cast it as a box and it is a fully functional time travelling machine therefore that kid is the one that invented time travelling machines"

[Harkness]

let us say we have 600 people with +10 to technology going into a room and all using aid another it makes a total of approximatively 3300 bonus to the check of whichever is the main person.
The helicopter da vinci "invented" was not functioning.
In fact the first man powered helicopter that was made did not have a design similar at all to the one of da vinci.(and was made a long time after engine powered helicopters)
It would be like waiting 2000 years saying "hey that kid 2000 years ago told we could make a time travelling machine that is just a box and here with our chronium allow we just have to cast it as a box and it is a fully functional time travelling machine therefore that kid is the one that invented time travelling machines"

You're absolutely right. All of that and I forgot to double check the feat in question!

What I must have remembered hearing about was that someone tested his "scuba gear" with certain materials and found it worked well in shallow waters. I'll adjust accordingly, since it was still something invented in the 1820's, and by accounts a reasonable feat assuming he would have adjusted somehow for the bamboo or obtained some at the time (although since he didn't it becomes highly speculative.)

[Heliomance]

A level 20 human is not the absolute best that a real world human can achieve. A level 20 human is far and away beyond real world limits, they are superhuman in every sense, practically a god. D&D does a notoriously terrible job of modelling reality, but I think general consensus is that real world human peak potential maxes out at around level 5 or 6.

Also, Stephen Hawking didn't score 200 on IQ, and IQ is notoriously unreliable at high levels and dubiously useful anyway. Hawking's recorded IQ was 160, FWIW