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Smurf hax: Either defining or killing it

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Bobsican said:
There were mixed responses on the site's history (as the OP somewhat mentions) on if characters that are on these conditions (4-D or above in stuff like AP and the like but still on a 3D body and similar) were immune to hax of the same dimensionality as their bodies and if not what semantics would be at play, which that tried to address.
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I don't think it is a universally defined concept. In fictional works, characters with high-dimensional abilities may have immunity to attacks or abilities of the same dimensionality, highlighting their superior understanding and control. However, other stories depict high-dimensional characters as vulnerable to attacks within their dimensionality, requiring them to rely on defensive techniques or alternate dimensions for protection.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
I cannot imagine how something like a reality-fiction difference, or being a God over a given verse, gives the practical exact same list of qualities as just being higher-dimensional, so yes, I would like to ask that you walk through the process. It is currently my opinion that you would indeed require an entirely different caliber of, say, Mind Manipulation to make it work on someone who considers you to be fictional.
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Without intending to disrupt the peaceful conversation, I would like to highlight that our current system equates r>f transcendence as higher dimensional transcendence, similar to how it is commonly depicted in fictional works.
 
Agnaa said:
Disagree with Bob: 6 (4 with "official voting rights") (@DemiiPowa, @Moritzva, @Celestial_Pegasus, @KLOL506, @Mr._Bambu, @Theglassman12)

Neutral on Bob's view: 1 (0 with "official voting rights") (@AbaddonTheDisappointment)

Ontology almost always resists/bypasses resistances, HDE/size is range and often resists/bypasses resistances: 3 (2 with "official voting rights") (@Agnaa, @Ultima_Reality, @DontTalkDT)

Only dimensionality matters: 1 (1 with "official voting rights") (@LordGriffin1000)

Rereading through these posts, I think I'd say I'm far more willing to give out immunity to lower-tiered hax, than to say that higher-tiered hax bypasses resistances.

A character that can raise the temperature of all space in a 1-A realm by 1 degree wouldn't have such an ability instakill a 10-B because it's "1-A hax", since it can't be particularly focused, and so a character who resists any EE should be able to resist similar 1-A EE. If it could be channeled into a beam of energy, then sure that'd one-shot the 10-B. But a lot of abilities don't indicate that they can be focused that way.

While on the other end, being able to erase an infinite 3-D volume would remove roughly 0% of a being whose size lands in tier 2 or higher, so while they would technically be "affected" it'd be on such a small scale that it wouldn't matter.

Consider that a brief summary of my position.
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"Official voting rights"? What does that mean?
 
I assume Agnaa made a slight error, he should have said “staff members with evaluation rights”, since this term has been established in the guidelines.
 
Just_a_Random_Butler said:
In terms of decision-making or voting when it comes to stuff like this, bureaucrats are given the highest rights, followed by administrators, and then thread moderators. I think that's what it is referring to.
Click to expand...
So everyone else's votes don't matter then? Or am I misunderstanding
 
This appears to be derailing, but it is important to note that not everyone's opinion is being disregarded. Rather, specified staff members (beru, admins, super mod and thread mods) have the right to vote based on their expertise and the responsibilities associated with their roles, for which they have been promoted due to their competence in those areas.
 
DemiiPowa said:
So everyone else's votes don't matter then? Or am I misunderstanding
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For passing CRTs, ultimately so, only thread mods, admins and bureaucrats matter when it comes to applying a CRT, everyone else's votes are irrelevant (Unless it's a Calc Group Thread in which case CGM votes are counted as well). It's always been this way since the early days of the wiki.

Of course, other opinions can absolutely be taken into account. It's just that they have to convince staff on that front.
 
ImmortalDread said:
Without intending to disrupt the peaceful conversation, I would like to highlight that our current system equates r>f transcendence as higher dimensional transcendence, similar to how it is commonly depicted in fictional works.
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I'm aware of that, we equate them in terms of potency. I'm saying that we should not necessarily take them as 1:1 in terms of dealing with higher-tiered abilities when our system is so theoretical and when, in my experience, most pages are not explicitly dimensional in terms of basis for scaling.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
I missed this, assuming that when I edited my post is roughly when you posted and so it marked it as read? Either way, apologies.

I cannot imagine how something like a reality-fiction difference, or being a God over a given verse, gives the practical exact same list of qualities as just being higher-dimensional, so yes, I would like to ask that you walk through the process. It is currently my opinion that you would indeed require an entirely different caliber of, say, Mind Manipulation to make it work on someone who considers you to be fictional.
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How would a character affect the substance of a character who sees them as fictional with an ability?

Their ability would firstly need the range to reach them. Being able to reach from within that fiction to the higher world. Since we equate different ways of reaching tiers, any way of being able to get range on that level would qualify.

Once that range is possible, they may or may not need to content with issues of scale. An all-encompassing supreme being would require a far larger scale than a human writing a book would.

Once both of those are dealt with, there can be the issue of speed, which would get resolved in traditional avenues.

Similarly, for abilities that affect non-physical aspects of a character, they'd simply need the range to reach out of fiction to where the author resides.

And abilities which affect reality itself would be able to affect whichever avatars the author creates, but not the actual being itself.

And things along the lines of madness manipulation type 3 would still be liable to spread, as long as those superior beings have minds similar to beings which have been affected by it before. Unless the verse itself establishes that such things don't permeate through those differences.

The main differences are that scale isn't always required, and that, for abilities that don't work, instead of them working on an infinitesimal slice of the target, just don't reach the target at all.
 
I think you too easily reduce the issues of reality-fiction to a matter of size and scale- I don't find that agreeable. Further, some of these points are just assumptions- obviously we are dealing in fiction but I think it a matter of the simplest assumption being the one we may take most easily. Statements like

Similarly, for abilities that affect non-physical aspects of a character, they'd simply need the range to reach out of fiction to where the author resides.
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...do not strike me as being compatible with Occam's Razor. To affect the mind of a God, one should need to show an ability to affect a being on their level. I disagree that it is just a matter of reaching out, I think this is based on the ideals of dimensional tiering when this is a separate case.

It occurs to me that you're Australian and that's why you're posting as I'm about to head out to work, so while I will try to reply, I can promise little. If it comes to pass that the conversation carries on without me (doubtable, but feasible), I am currently voting against these standards, still.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
To affect the mind of a God, one should need to show an ability to affect a being on their level.
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To interrogate that, at roughly what point does a being become "on a higher level", and why?
 
Too many cases to generalize that, but let's go with reality-fiction difference.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
Too many cases to generalize that, but let's go with reality-fiction difference.
Click to expand...
Kinda feels like there was meant to be more with this post, but I'll just run with it.

I think I just had a brain blast that gave me the outline of a point I'd lost.

Essentially, that due to such characters with ontological differences being "more real" or something akin to that, we should by default assume that they're not affected by stuff "less real" by them, unless such abilities have shown the ability to break through such a barrier.

This would effectively add an extra layer for why abilities from weaker characters won't work on them, applying to all except for the stuff like madness manip type 3.

In threads between characters on the same level of reality, we would verse equalise this away so that they can still have matches.

In the other direction; for smurf hax that works on such beings, they could be assumed as bypassing most resistances.

Would that be something you'd consider more appropriate?
 
Alright, so basically your proposal is Smurf hax works more or less similarly to how it does now (you need to show an ability to affect "more real" characters to affect them in a vs match) with some exceptions like Madness Manipulation Type 3 since that hinges on the cognition of the target.

Is that right? Forgive me if there's some typos btw, I am on phone.
 
Mostly, but there's a few more nuances.

What you describe only applies to characters who reach tiers by being "more real", and not other ways of reaching those tiers.

Plus, some characters who can hax more real characters, won't be able to do so to others of the same tier. Being able to poison a human that sees you as fiction doesn't mean you'd be able to poison an all-encompassing-god of the same tier, due to the latter also being far larger. But soul hax would work, since their souls should be the same size, and the range can be covered.

And avatars/extensions of them into reality would still be able to be affected. That probably wouldn't matter much, but I don't wanna assume that it never will.
 
Poison has always functionally been about size, that is one ability we can address with confidence since it's just a real thing.

It sounds as though, based on that soul hax but, that you're still arguing based on size for other abilities, however, which is where I disagree.
 
Mr._Bambu said:
It sounds as though, based on that soul hax but, that you're still arguing based on size for other abilities, however, which is where I disagree.
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That was in the case where they can hax some more real characters.

i.e. being able to soulhax a human who sees them as fiction would generally imply that they can soulhax a supreme being who sees them as fiction.
 
Returning to this: I spoke more with Agnaa via Discord. The brief conversation there led to Agnaa's explanation that for characters who reach these higher tiers ontologically rather than dimensionally mostly keeping our current perceptions of "Smurf hax" as is.

My primary concern with this thread was a broad-stroke unilateral change to the system. That has been avoided.

I still believe the change will be a negative one and lean towards voting negatively- as I said on Discord, I believe our system is poorly understood enough, and that further complicating it based on theoretical logic is probably not worth it. With that said, I will still shift my position to neutral in terms of voting.
 
I actually tried to summarise it based on your thoughts, Ultima's thoughts and mines. I would like the former, but also you need to suggest the alternative or middle ground solution for this.

Likewise, I think the idea of defining it like I did should stay, but obviously with more convincing and accurate information.
 
ImmortalDread said:
I actually tried to summarise it based on your thoughts, Ultima's thoughts and mines. I would like the former, but also you need to suggest the alternative or middle ground solution for this.

Likewise, I think the idea of defining it like I did should stay, but obviously with more convincing and accurate information.
Click to expand...
Alrighty, I will need a day or so to make a full write up then~
 
DontTalkDT said:
Well, I sure have been away for a while. Where are we standing debate-wise?
Click to expand...
Guess now's a good time as ever to update my draft.

First, some points I'm fairly confident on:
  • Characters that are high-tier, but still finitely large in 3-D space, will only be immune to abilities that don't involve causing direct damage, partially ignoring/lowering durability, manipulating energy, etc. Most dura neg, attack reflection, stuff like elemental manip and energy manip.
  • Abilities that have worked on characters that are high-tier, but still finitely large in 3-D space, won't be interpreted as particularly more potent, unless they cause direct damage, partially ignore/lower durability, manipulate energy, etc.
  • Characters that are high-tier, and at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume, will be immune to a lot of abilities. The abilities I wanna talk about largely fall into four categories:
    1. Abilities that need scale and range to work. EEing a living timeline doesn't just require the ability to erase a person at any point in a timeline, it requires the ability to cover all of the being at once. Most abilities that run into issues with high-tier but finitely large characters run into this one as well. This applies to most abilities that manipulate/effect the physical substance of a character, such as disease manip, poison manip, matter manip, and space manip.
    2. Abilities that just need range to work. If you could locate and crush the soul of any creature in a timeline, you could presumably do the same for a creature the size of a timeline, since their soul shouldn't have a different size. This applies to most abilities that manipulate/effect a non-physical substance of a character, such as information manip, soul manip, and certain kinds of mind manip.
    3. Abilities that affect reality, not the target. These kind of work and kind of don't. If you can modify the laws of reality, an opponent who extends a tendril into that reality in order to whack you would be affected by those laws, but the parts of them that extend outside of it won't be. Oftentimes they can just nuke the reality from outside of it, and no non-infinitesimal portion of them could be incapacitated by this. This applies to most abilities that manipulate reality itself, such as reality warping, plot manip, fate manip, and supernatural luck.
    4. Abilities where the target affects themselves. If seeing a certain object drives you mad, not because it has innate magical energy that's reaching out and twisting your mind, but purely because a human brain processing it naturally ends up doing that, simply being large wouldn't be enough to bypass this. However, there'd be a lot of other ways to avoid this; on top of typical resistances, one could simply be outside of the ordinary reference class for the ability (i.e. not being human if it has only worked on humans), or not be able to perceive it. I can only think of stuff that operates like type 3 madness manip getting this, but maybe there is something else.
  • Abilities that affect characters which are high-tier, at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume, will:
    1. Be interpreted as more powerful only if that scale can be concentrated for a more potent effect on smaller targets, such as through a Universal Energy System. And regardless, be interpreted as having higher range.
    2. Not be interpreted as more powerful, but as of having higher range.
    3. Not be interpreted as more powerful, but as of having higher range.
    4. Not be interpreted as more powerful or a higher range.
  • Characters that aren't high-tier, but still have most of their body outside of attacks that can cover an entire universe at one point in time (such as Scion (Worm) and a lot of characters with Acausality Type 3) would be treated largely the same as previously-mentioned characters (who are higher-tiered and at least infinitely large in terms of volume), unless they have anti-feats indicating they don't function in that way, and with the exception that abilities that interact with energy/durability like durability negation, attack reflection, and so on would still ordinarily effect the parts of their body that exist within the universe at that point in time.
    • The same correspondence would take place offensively; hax which works on these beings would be treated as more powerful in the same ways/cases as outlined with attacks which work against characters who are high-tier and at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume. With the exception that abilities which interact with energy/durability won't be treated as vastly superior in terms of potency. And the footnote that this may not always be enough to affect high-tiered characters. A small-scale 7-D being would still be infinitely smaller than a 7-D being who is infinitely large in all those axes, so abilities that affect the former won't necessarily work on the latter.
  • Characters that are high tier due to ontological superiority (i.e. being "more real") will be considered immune to abilities that are "less real" than them, unless those abilities have shown the ability to cross such barriers to that extent canonically, or they could logically do so (the fourth category of abilities above; abilities where the victim affects themselves). However, there would also be similar issues to earlier examples; sufficient range would be needed, and in some cases (where such beings are omnipresent) may require scale as well.
  • Abilities that affect characters who are high-tier and ontologically superior (that don't involve such beings affecting themselves) would be considered more powerful, and as of having higher range. If the ontologically superior being also occupies a lot of space, it would also be interpreted as having more scale.
I'd also want to note that for any obvious objections (you say higher-D beings won't have larger souls, but what if the verse says they do?) that a verse's own established context that goes against these assumptions would generally take precedence, particularly in the defensive direction.

And some points I'm less confident on:
  • Exactly how characters who are higher-tiered through "higher realms" that aren't ontologically superior should be treated. My gut instinct leans towards treating them as finitely large or infinitely large (only to a 3-D extent; a 1-C higher realm wouldn't require 1-C range, just High 3-A range) depending on the verse's context.
  • Exactly how to make sure that high-tier vs high-tier fights aren't shitstomps. Should we say that verse equalisation lets all these characters hit each other? What does that do to extreme cases like Goku vs a living timeline, or someone who sees reality as fiction?
 
So, a small tldr is basically:

1. Higher D abilities don't necessarily bypass lower D resistances unless it can be concentrated (UES and stuff similar).

2. Ontologically superior abilities bypass lower tier resistances by default (Ie Low 1-C ontologically superior ability will bypass the resistance of a Low 2-C character)

Did I get that right?
 
(Finished the comments, but not my own draft 'cause the day 's been busy. So I will post them together tomorrow)

Agnaa said:
Guess now's a good time as ever to update my draft.

First, some points I'm fairly confident on:
  • Characters that are high-tier, but still finitely large in 3-D space, will only be immune to abilities that don't involve causing direct damage, partially ignoring/lowering durability, manipulating energy, etc. Most dura neg, attack reflection, stuff like elemental manip and energy manip.
  • Abilities that have worked on characters that are high-tier, but still finitely large in 3-D space, won't be interpreted as particularly more potent, unless they cause direct damage, partially ignore/lower durability, manipulate energy, etc.
  • Characters that are high-tier, and at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume, will be immune to a lot of abilities. The abilities I wanna talk about largely fall into four categories:
    1. Abilities that need scale and range to work. EEing a living timeline doesn't just require the ability to erase a person at any point in a timeline, it requires the ability to cover all of the being at once. Most abilities that run into issues with high-tier but finitely large characters run into this one as well. This applies to most abilities that manipulate/effect the physical substance of a character, such as disease manip, poison manip, matter manip, and space manip.
    2. Abilities that just need range to work. If you could locate and crush the soul of any creature in a timeline, you could presumably do the same for a creature the size of a timeline, since their soul shouldn't have a different size. This applies to most abilities that manipulate/effect a non-physical substance of a character, such as information manip, soul manip, and certain kinds of mind manip.
    3. Abilities that affect reality, not the target. These kind of work and kind of don't. If you can modify the laws of reality, an opponent who extends a tendril into that reality in order to whack you would be affected by those laws, but the parts of them that extend outside of it won't be. Oftentimes they can just nuke the reality from outside of it, and no non-infinitesimal portion of them could be incapacitated by this. This applies to most abilities that manipulate reality itself, such as reality warping, plot manip, fate manip, and supernatural luck.
    4. Abilities where the target affects themselves. If seeing a certain object drives you mad, not because it has innate magical energy that's reaching out and twisting your mind, but purely because a human brain processing it naturally ends up doing that, simply being large wouldn't be enough to bypass this. However, there'd be a lot of other ways to avoid this; on top of typical resistances, one could simply be outside of the ordinary reference class for the ability (i.e. not being human if it has only worked on humans), or not be able to perceive it. I can only think of stuff that operates like type 3 madness manip getting this, but maybe there is something else.
  • Abilities that affect characters which are high-tier, at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume, will:
    1. Be interpreted as more powerful only if that scale can be concentrated for a more potent effect on smaller targets, such as through a Universal Energy System. And regardless, be interpreted as having higher range.
    2. Not be interpreted as more powerful, but as of having higher range.
    3. Not be interpreted as more powerful, but as of having higher range.
    4. Not be interpreted as more powerful or a higher range.
  • Characters that aren't high-tier, but still have most of their body outside of attacks that can cover an entire universe at one point in time (such as Scion (Worm) and a lot of characters with Acausality Type 3) would be treated largely the same as previously-mentioned characters (who are higher-tiered and at least infinitely large in terms of volume), unless they have anti-feats indicating they don't function in that way, and with the exception that abilities that interact with energy/durability like durability negation, attack reflection, and so on would still ordinarily effect the parts of their body that exist within the universe at that point in time.
    • The same correspondence would take place offensively; hax which works on these beings would be treated as more powerful in the same ways/cases as outlined with attacks which work against characters who are high-tier and at least infinitely large in terms of 3-D volume. With the exception that abilities which interact with energy/durability won't be treated as vastly superior in terms of potency. And the footnote that this may not always be enough to affect high-tiered characters. A small-scale 7-D being would still be infinitely smaller than a 7-D being who is infinitely large in all those axes, so abilities that affect the former won't necessarily work on the latter.
  • Characters that are high tier due to ontological superiority (i.e. being "more real") will be considered immune to abilities that are "less real" than them, unless those abilities have shown the ability to cross such barriers to that extent canonically, or they could logically do so (the fourth category of abilities above; abilities where the victim affects themselves). However, there would also be similar issues to earlier examples; sufficient range would be needed, and in some cases (where such beings are omnipresent) may require scale as well.
  • Abilities that affect characters who are high-tier and ontologically superior (that don't involve such beings affecting themselves) would be considered more powerful, and as of having higher range. If the ontologically superior being also occupies a lot of space, it would also be interpreted as having more scale.
I'd also want to note that for any obvious objections (you say higher-D beings won't have larger souls, but what if the verse says they do?) that a verse's own established context that goes against these assumptions would generally take precedence, particularly in the defensive direction.
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That sounds like a good summary of my position as well.

Agnaa said:
And some points I'm less confident on:

-Exactly how characters who are higher-tiered through "higher realms" that aren't ontologically superior should be treated. My gut instinct leans towards treating them as finitely large or infinitely large (only to a 3-D extent; a 1-C higher realm wouldn't require 1-C range, just High 3-A range) depending on the verse's context.
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I think that needs to be settled almost entirely case-by-case. Realms of that nature even having the qualitative superiority to be Tier 1 is an exception, so just like the tier they have is subject to much case-by-case consideration this would be, too. One just has to see how the fiction explains what the higher realm is like and see what makes sense from there.

Agnaa said:
-Exactly how to make sure that high-tier vs high-tier fights aren't shitstomps. Should we say that verse equalisation lets all these characters hit each other? What does that do to extreme cases like Goku vs a living timeline, or someone who sees reality as fiction?
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I don't really understand the question. Do you mean, like, if a higher-dimensional character fights a character with R>F, how does the interaction work? Because that's a topic probably better left for another thread. (I'm fairly sure we currently verse equalize them into equal tiers corresponding to them being able to hit each other, though)
 
DontTalkDT said:
I don't really understand the question. Do you mean, like, if a higher-dimensional character fights a character with R>F, how does the interaction work? Because that's a topic probably better left for another thread. (I'm fairly sure we currently verse equalize them into equal tiers corresponding to them being able to hit each other, though)
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Yeah pretty much. Especially in extreme cases where one of the higher-tiered characters is only 3-D physically, while another is ontologically superior. Do we equalise these immunities/smurf abilities away so their attacks work on each other, or not?

But sure, we could leave that for another thread ig.
 
DontTalkDT said:
I think that needs to be settled almost entirely case-by-case. Realms of that nature even having the qualitative superiority to be Tier 1 is an exception, so just like the tier they have is subject to much case-by-case consideration this would be, too. One just has to see how the fiction explains what the higher realm is like and see what makes sense from there.
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I guess that'd mean that by default such cases wouldn't be smurf? I'd remind that more often than not the potency or "layers" of an ability aren't directly discussed in-verse. Otherwise still laying out what kind of cases here would qualify for "smurf" and what wouldn't would be nice, as knowning everyone they'll argue that basically any case of this sort is just smurf, especially with the current status quo.
 
Bobsican said:
I guess that'd mean that by default such cases wouldn't be smurf? I'd remind that more often than not the potency or "layers" of an ability aren't directly discussed in-verse. Otherwise still laying out what kind of cases here would qualify for "smurf" and what wouldn't would be nice, as knowning everyone they'll argue that basically any case of this sort is just smurf, especially with the current status quo.
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They wouldn't need discussion about layers of an ability, just discussions that go over what literal physical size those realms have. They'd mostly need to justify which of the former camps they fall into, or if it implies something in-between them.
 
I have taken vastly longer than I would have liked (sorry about that), but I'm finally coming around with a draft.

One question I will leave open for now is where to place this. Depending on where some slight reformatting would be necessary. I have a hard time deciding where I would place it. The topics are interconnected, so they could be on one page, but one is smurf and one is resistance, so neither the hax nor the resistance page seems quite right. Maybe one could place it in 2 sections of the Tiering System FAQ, right after each other? Although they are only tangentially related to the tiering system, I suppose. One could place one section on each the hax and resistance page and link them... (The hax page will need a rewriting regardless to update it)

In general, I like Agnaa's approach of defining 4 categories of hax. That makes the structuring easy and tidy. I will add a 5th one to also include the case of partial durability negation into the structure.
Otherwise, I will loosely orientate myself on IDs proposal. (Although the restructuring given the former, and a stricter separation into resistance and smurf hax, makes it truly very loosely : ( )
I will for now write it as two separate sections: One for Resistance and one for Smurf, which may reference each other (could be via links depending on where we place it) but also repeat a little.

Resistance by Higher Levels of Infinity​

As common sense dictates characters which have infinitely higher durability than another character has attack potency are immune to all regular forms of attacks from the weaker character. However, many kinds of durability circumventing hax exist. Whether or not they can affect infinitely stronger characters depends on the kind of hax and the fashion in which the target infinitely transcends the user.

Hax Categories​

For ease of explanation, we sort hax into the following 6 categories. A hax could belong to multiple ones.
  1. Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: These are abilities which do not function completely independent of the scale of durability. This includes things like pressure point techniques, acupuncture and attacks on internal organs, as all those need to be able to deal at least a tiny amount of damage to produce their effect. Certain more exotic hax can also fall into this category, such as abilities that disintegrate molecules or atoms, as for a character with infinitely stronger durability the bonds between the particles making up their body would also need to be infinitely stronger.
  2. Abilities that need scale and range to work: These are fully durability circumventing abilities whose area of effect needs to cover all or a significant fraction of the character's body to have a lethal effect and, for that purpose, need to be able to target the respective parts of the characters. Examples for that could be Existence Erasure or Transmutation via Reality Warping. Poison also falls into this category, although it has the advantage that when hit the character's physiology might transport through the whole body.
  3. Abilities that just need range to work: These are fully durability circumventing abilities which target things that are not necessarily bound to physical size, such as the non-physical mind or the soul of a character. Note that depending on the fiction these could also be of the same dimension as the character in which case mind and soul manipulation would be of the 2nd Type instead.
  4. Abilities that affect reality, not the target: These are fully durability circumventing abilities like law manipulation or concept manipulation, which affect reality, or part of a reality, as a whole instead of targeting just a character.
  5. Abilities where the target affects themselves: Fully durability circumventing abilities where the target does something to make them affect themself. The most typical example would be Madness Manipulation Type 3, where the act of perceiving the user is what "delivers" the effect to the target. Note that this only applies if there is no supernatural power reaching out (which could be limited by range), but truly just perception itself is what manifests the effect, for example, due to subliminal messages hidden in it.

Transcendence Types​

With the categories of hax clarified, the following list offers guidelines for how the abilities may be assumed to interact with the respective types of infinite transcendence. Note that all of this is under the assumption that the abilities have no particular feats of affecting characters that are qualitatively superior to the user.

Exlusively Statistical​

This could be called the most basic type. The target has Durability that is infinitely higher than the users Attack Potency, but otherwise doesn't transcend them. They have the same dimensionality, there is no layer of Reality-Fiction Transcendence between them and there also otherwise is no further superiority that is of relevance.
  1. Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: These would usually be assumed not to work, as the infinitely higher durability makes a limited circumvention of durability still meaningless. Even if the attacker only had to deal with a millionth of the character's durability, with the initial difference being infinite that is still beyond the attacker's power. Techniques like pressure points would also be unlikely to be triggered, as actually pushing the point is likely beyond the attacker's strength.
  2. Abilities that need scale and range to work: As the character is scale and range-wise not special those would work, as they would against a character with a finite stat difference.
  3. Abilities that just need range to work: Same as 2.
  4. Abilities that affect reality, not the target: As long as the character exists within the same reality as the attacker these should in principle work as when used against a character with just a finite stat difference.
  5. Abilities where the target affects themselves: As the character has no specific protection against this, they would be affected the same way as when the ability is used against a character with just a finite stat difference.

Higher-Dimensional Existence​

Characters which have higher-dimensional existence i.e. whose body extends through at least one more dimension than the attacker usually operates in. This is strictly in terms of proper mathematical dimensions.

  1. Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: As those characters also have infinitely higher durability, these would be ineffective for the same reasons as for this with an exclusively statistics-based transcendence. This might not apply to not tiering-applicable dimensions.
  2. Abilities that need scale and range to work: Such abilities would usually have no effect on beings of a higher dimensionality. That is due to such beings simultaneously having an infinitely larger "volume" than the ability's demonstrated area of effect as well as most of the body existing along a dimensional axis the ability has no access to, i.e. beyond the ability's range. It should be noted that one could argue, that a 2-dimensional plane of a 3-dimensional character being erased would bisect them and that analogue effects would happen for higher dimensions. However, it could just as likely just amount to cutting of a strand of hair, instead of down the middle, and no further damage could be dealt. It also would not work if the dimensional difference is more than one, as that would be like erasing an infinitely thin line of a 3-dimensional being. Furthermore, the cut would be infinitely thin, which would arguably mean the body does not actually fall apart, as it is like cutting something with a knife so thin that it misses all the atoms and hence ends up not shifting anything. So unless the fiction clarifies otherwise, even by such a cutting method it is unlikely to cause significant damage.
  3. Abilities that just need range to work: As established, most of the character's body would exist beyond the dimensional axis and hence be beyond the range of the ability. One could now argue that some non-dimensional thing like the mind or soul of the character could happen to still be in the same space as the attacker and hence within range. However, there is no particular reason that would be the case and the mathematical probability of that happening by mere chance is 0%. Hence such abilities should generally not work on higher-dimensional characters.
  4. Abilities that affect reality, not the target: This would be very similar to the 2nd and 3rd case. Most of the character is outside of the abilities area of effect and range, making it next to impossible that it has a significant effect on them. One important difference to note is that any part that enters the reality, and hence the range of the ability, may still be affected. If laws or concepts were altered to erase the higher-dimensional character, them sticking their hand into the altered reality would still erase their hand, somewhat limiting their attack options.
  5. Abilities where the target affects themselves: As long as the ability does not need to contend with the character's scale these should be still effective. A higher-dimensional entity may still be affected by the subliminal messages in a movie it watches, for example. The usual range problem is circumvented by the target's own sensory capabilities leading to them perceiving the threat. It should be noted, however, that such entities sometimes have things like higher-order minds or generally very alien mental structures. These could under certain circumstances interfere with the effectiveness of such abilities.

Reality-Fiction Transcendence​

As an example for how more qualitative transcendence systems may work, we will look at Reality-Fiction Transcendence.

  1. Abilities which only circumvent durability to a limited extent: As the attacker's attacks would appear entirely fictional to the target, they would not be able to deal even the tiny amount of an effect that would be necessary for these to be effective.
  2. Abilities that need scale and range to work: As such characters would typically exist completely outside of the attacker's reality the abilities are unlikely to reach them and even if they did, they would only be registered as fictional and hence incapable of having a real effect.
  3. Abilities that just need range to work: Same as 2.
  4. Abilities that affect reality, not the target: These abilities would be incapable of effecting their target, as it would be outside of their range and the change itself would arguably be one fictional to them, possibly not even affecting their access to the reality.
  5. Abilities where the target affects themselves: Things like subliminal messages or social influencing may still be effective against such characters. While a movie with subliminal messages might be fictional to such a character, so was it to the original viewer. It being less real has no actual influence on whether the comprehension of the subject matter has an effect on the target. Another example could be if there, for example, is a reality-fiction difference between the attacker and target, in which the lower plane of reality is analogous to a virtual reality game and the target enters that game by transferring their consciousness into it. By bringing their consciousness to the level of the game, they essentially expose themselves to mind attacks, as they made the game "real" to themselves in that way.

Others​

Several other kinds of transcendence exist in fiction. The exact way hax would interact with these types would need to be analyzed case-by-case. The arguments presented for the three types above can be used as a reference for which arguments may apply to such other types. Many cases will, for example, have targets exist in some other space than the people using the ability, in which case the abilities likely wouldn't work without feats of reaching that other space.

Smurf Abilities​

A fan term that originated in MMORPG communities where a player restarts their game and is matched against newbies after having years of experience and resources. However, in the vs-community, it has come to instead refer to characters who possess abilities capable of harming characters who are in durability qualitatively superior to them by means which should be impossible for regular abilities. I.e. they possess abilities which in themself can, at least in some aspect, be considered qualitatively superior to their regular counterpart.
Due to that, they can often circumvent certain defences against the abilities, although this depends on in which aspect the ability can be considered qualitatively superior.
The two big aspects to differentiate between are power/potency and range/area of Effect.

Power / Potency​

Abilities that in terms of pure power are qualitatively superior to the physical stats of the character, e.g. a physically Tier 7 character capable of casting a Tier 1-A fireball, or hax which has potency qualitatively superior to the baseline potency, e.g. soul hax which can affect a character that sees them as mere fiction.

The typical way for an ability to be proven as being smurf in the aspect is it having showings or statements of being able to affect a character, which it shouldn't due to them transcending them in a way that it would require such a higher potency to affect them. A typical example would be affecting characters which see them as mere fiction. See "Resistance by Higher Levels of Infinity" for some examples of reasoning for why characters with certain transcendence resist certain things.

It's important to separate the case of Power or Potency from the case of Range or Area of Effect. A higher-dimensional character might be immune to regular mind manipulation due to being outside its range, but not due to their mind being fundamentally infinitely harder to affect. Of course, exceptions may apply if there are statements or feats of the opposite.

Another way an ability can be shown to have smurf potency / power is if it significantly affects a structure of qualitatively superior size. E.g. existence erasure which can affect a (tiering-applicable) higher-dimensional structure or character would qualify.

Lastly, if it overcomes a resistance which is known to operate on a qualitatively superior level it would also be considered smurf.

The main advantage of an ability being considered smurf in power / potency is that it is assumed to be able to overpower all resistances that don't have feats or statements of being able to perform on an equal or superior level. That in practice means that, for example, a 3D character that has abilities with Low 1-C smurf potency would be able to overcome all the regular Tier 2 or lower resistances as if they weren't there.

Range / Area of Effect​

Abilities which can in terms of range or area of effect reach structures outside of the reality the character itself exists in. An example would be a regular human, which can attack points in different universes, or a character that is physically Tier 2, but can erase 16-dimensional structures.

The importance of smurf range and area of effect is that without it many entities with certain kinds of transcendence ove rthe user can not be significantly harmed. A target with Reality-Fiction Transcendence may for example exist beyond the book in which the user's reality is contained. And even if a character had enough brute strength to kill a higher-dimensional character, they may not be able to do so in practice if they can't project their strength to a more then 3-dimensional area of effect, as they then can't affect a significant portion of the target's body. See "Resistance by Higher Levels of Infinity" for further details.

It is important to note that, contrary to abilities with smurf power or potency, abilities with smurf range or area of effect alone do not necessarily bypass all regular resistance on the level of the user.
Click to expand...
I think that much is enough for a first draft. There's probably enough that still needs to be added and reformulated, but probably a decent starting point? If ya prefer other options feel free to say so~
One could think about examples (Immortal Dread's draft had a start of that) but then I would like at least one for each category. Good suggestions on that are welcome.

ImmortalDread said:
I actually tried to summarise it based on your thoughts, Ultima's thoughts and mines. I would like the former, but also you need to suggest the alternative or middle ground solution for this.

Likewise, I think the idea of defining it like I did should stay, but obviously with more convincing and accurate information.
Click to expand...
https://www.transfernow.net/dl/smurf2

Put my comments to your draft in a text file, cause I used coloured text for comments... Should just have put the comments in a sandbox of my own from the start then it would have been far easier, but I didn't think that far at the time
 
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