Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Crash169 03-09-07, 03:14 AM	One of our new companions happened upon a magical ring. The bard used his bardic knowledge when he noticed the ring and it seems as though it might be a ring of 3 wishes. Our DM called it, "The Red Dragons Ring." Accoring to the lore, the ring grants the wishes but, there is also a rumor that the wish sometimes gets taken out of context. For example, "I wish to be the strongest man alive". Ok, so therefore every other persons strength will drop to one below yours. The ring has one wish left, and the character who has the ring is nothing more than a sellword. He stays with us because he finds that the adventuring life, especially the one(s) we lead, brings him much more money than he has ever made being a mercenary. In a recent battle, one of our long time companions, Garrick, died helping us defend the nation from an Evil lord. Garrick's companions want to use the ring to raise him, but the sellsword has his own agenda. I, the rogue of the party, want to steal the ring and make the wish. But I'm hesitant of what would happen if we bring him back to life. The ring is rumored to twist the the words that you say during the wishing process. So I was thinking something alone the lines of: I wish that Garrick, son of Arnal, loyal soldier of hieroneous be brought back to life. I don't know how that could be twisted.. but I'm sure some of you can come up with some ideas of this wish getting out of hand.
draco1119 03-09-07, 04:09 AM	So I was thinking something alone the lines of: I wish that Garrick, son of Arnal, loyal soldier of hieroneous be brought back to life in the same condition as he was 1 minute prior to his most recent death. I don't know how that could be twisted.. but I'm sure some of you can come up with some ideas of this wish getting out of hand. And be prepared for him to be wounded/poisoned/diseased, etc. I don't think the way I worded it can be twisted...
Rillek_Denar 03-09-07, 04:32 AM	What if he reappears in the Elemental Plane of Fire? Or 1000 ft up?
Drag0nUL 03-09-07, 04:47 AM	There are many ways you can twist such a wish if you want to be really mean, and you should make sure you have all covered in the text of the wish. I would go for something along the lines: 'I wish the ring casted true resurrection on Garrick, son of Arnal here and now.' provided any of your characters know in game what a true resurrection is. If this is not an option(requesting a specific spell) you could try: 'I wish Garrick son of Arnal would be brought back to life here and now, in the exact physical and mental condition he was one minute/hour/day before his most recent death'.
Bedevere 03-09-07, 04:52 AM	Here and now? ok, he appears in the same physical space as you. Messy.
Drag0nUL 03-09-07, 08:00 AM	Here and now? ok, he appears in the same physical space as you. Messy. I doubt you can do that. If I recall correctly form the rules you cannot materialize a creature(summoned or otherwise) in an illegal square such as your own space. However if you want to be absolutely sure you could change here and now with 'in the 5ft. square in front of me now'. As I said, there are many ways to twist this kind of wishes.
Radijs 03-09-07, 03:17 PM	Well then we'll be slightly more specific. Begin by drawing a circle in the ground and then utter the wish as follows: 'I wish Garrick son of Arnal would be safely brought back to life on top of this circle, in the exact physical and mental condition he was one minute/hour/day before his most recent death'.
danielinthewolvesden 03-09-07, 05:48 PM	The ring has one wish left, and the character who has the ring is nothing more than a sellword. He stays with us because he finds that the adventuring life, especially the one(s) we lead, brings him much more money than he has ever made being a mercenary. In a recent battle, one of our long time companions, Garrick, died helping us defend the nation from an Evil lord. Garrick's companions want to use the ring to raise him, but the sellsword has his own agenda. I, the rogue of the party, want to steal the ring and make the wish. But I'm hesitant of what would happen if we bring him back to life. The ring is rumored to twist the the words that you say during the wishing process. 1. It's his property, not yours. 2. Once a DM has decided to "crock" a wish, there is no wording that can stop him. It's likely your buddy will be an undead or be alive for one minute, or be alive but trapped in his coffin and die horribley.
DrakePD 03-09-07, 06:11 PM	Erm... An Idea Why not trick the Sellsword into using the wish off his ring? Does he wear the ring? If so you could pass him a scroll and ask him to quickly read the scroll off out loud? (To Whom it may concern, we have discovered a great treasure and I wish that our fallen comrade that is here before us be brought back to full life. This is a great treasure of a lost kingdom..... Well you get the idea, I dont want to take anymore fun out of it for you. ;) Tho this could get twisted and turned by the DM, but hopefully it will have little or no effect on you. :eek:
FrostHammer 03-09-07, 06:16 PM	Get someone to cast analyze Dweomer on it or something. Or get someone to cast True Ressurection. To pay the cleric back, you can go on a quest.
mcnoo 03-09-07, 06:51 PM	"I wish for that this piece of blank paper would turn into a scroll of the spell commonly cast by the priesthood of (insert the name of a clearly goodly god affiliated with life and certainly not undead in your campaign) that is capable of restoring this dead body to life, not as an undead, but with the soul he had before death, and that the scroll would not by the use of this wish in any way be removed from my person or cause anybody harm" Let's see, that way you won't get someone else's scroll because you're asking for a new one to be created, he won't (as always happens for wishing for new life) become undead because you specifically stated he shouldn't, and the list of spells it could possibly be (in case the DM finds something else that matches my description) a scroll of is strictly limited to nice things thanks to the description that it's commonly cast by clerics of a goodly god. The scroll can't appear somewhere else because you've specifically banned that, and it can't turn into an iron golem with the scroll inscribed on it because you said it can't cause anybody harm. I know this isn't perfect, there's always a loophole. Pick through it, find the mistakes, correct them, repeat over and over again and we'll have a perfectly streamlined wish.
Fatalis_902 03-09-07, 08:41 PM	I'm not sure what you should do about the sellsword, but swiping his ring could cause out of game problems if he is really immature. If he RPs maturely, then try appealing to his character's better half, or, if you prefer, inform him that if he does not allow you to use the ring's wish to restore your friend, he will be removed from the adventuring party. That said, when and if you get the ring, you will phrase the wish as follows, "I wish that <insert full name of character, including any titles, classes, ranks, positions, or nicknames that you know of, as well as citing his/her paternal ties, going back at least three generations, if possible, and verifying his/her identity by citing the ties to his/her six closest blood relatives with their full names, paternal ties going back one generation, and titles, excluding his/her father, here> was restored to life on <insert name of plane of current occupancy here> in the exact physical and mental conditions he was in exactly one minute prior to his most recent death, with his soul intact within his body, which is to be placed at a position exactly five feet in front of the bearer of this ring at the present time." THERE!!! Let's see even the most a**-iest DM reinterpret that wish into a twisted mockery of it. God, I love wanting to be a lawyer.
danielinthewolvesden 03-09-07, 09:00 PM	I'm not sure what you should do about the sellsword, but swiping his ring could cause out of game problems if he is really immature. If he RPs maturely, then try appealing to his character's better half, or, if you prefer, inform him that if he does not allow you to use the ring's wish to restore your friend, he will be removed from the adventuring party. That said, when and if you get the ring, you will phrase the wish as follows, "I wish that...." THERE!!! . Even mature players do not like being stolen from. Why should his failure to give up his valuable one use item lead to him being removed? It's his item. He might want to save his life. Or he might feel that any use of the ring will be crocked by that DM. Or perhaps he is waiting to trade the ring for a scroll of resurrection. If the rogue wants his buddy back so back, take up a collection and buy a spell. Why does the one PC have to bear 100% of the cost? How did he get the ring in the first place? And so they use that wording and that happens, and the PC is brought back, but the whole battle that led to his death is replayed with the current PC's frozen and unable to do naught but watch. If a DM is determined to crock a wish, he will do so. Clever wording just leads to bigger crocks. mcnoo- the scroll is unreadable except by a diety. Again, clever wording just leads to bigger crocks. Do not try and be clever. OP- why does the sellsword have the ring? Have you tried buying it from him?
Fatalis_902 03-09-07, 09:49 PM	In this case, I was not talking about removing the player, just the character. The ring is rightfully the entire party's, unless the sellsword got it on his own and not from some treasure hoard or corpse after a battle. As for reliving the battle, you just have to amend the wish to include something about him being in the temporal stream in the present time, and not having to relive the battle. Or, you could move to a spot away from the battle site, thereby making it impossible within the context of the wording to replay the last ten rounds of the battle before this character bit it. Or, circumvent the entire debate with the following wish, "I wish for an ordinary ring of three wishes, with all three wishes intact and unused, to appear in place of this ring." The wish is simple enough to be un-crockable by reasonable standards, yet specific enough to avoid intentional mis-interpretation. You now have three ordinary wish spells to work with, so the sellsword gets his, you get your friend back, and you still have a spare wish left. Of course, this is assuming that you do not just want to give up and go home, which is what you seem to be implying they should do, Daniel. Just leave their friend dead, let the sellsword have his crocked wish, and CALL IT A DAY! But I know that I wouldn't play that way, and I would refuse to be crocked by a DM, especially when I come up with something like my wish-statements to beat one of his puzzles. Also, from an RP standpoint, I would refuse to travel with someone so selfish as to be unwilling to sacrifice one item that is iffy in value at best to help out the team. My opinion: the sellsword's character chips in to help solve this issue, or he ships out, and the player rolls up a new character.
DyloniusFunk 03-10-07, 12:29 AM	Or, circumvent the entire debate with the following wish, "I wish for an ordinary ring of three wishes, with all three wishes intact and unused, to appear in place of this ring." The wish is simple enough to be un-crockable by reasonable standards, yet specific enough to avoid intentional mis-interpretation. You now have three ordinary wish spells to work with, so the sellsword gets his, you get your friend back, and you still have a spare wish left. Didn't you ever watch Aladdin?:D Wishing for more wishes is the first big no no.
Fatalis_902 03-10-07, 08:28 AM	That's with genies who have been trapped in lamps for 1000+ years. Of course, you could just wish for a candle of invocation, and summon Pazuzu to gain infinite wishes.
DyloniusFunk 03-10-07, 12:54 PM	That's with genies who have been trapped in lamps for 1000+ years. Of course, you could just wish for a candle of invocation, and summon Pazuzu to gain infinite wishes. It's still the same concept, wishing for more wishes. I just used Aladdin as an example, mostly because Robin Williams as The Genie is made of win.:rofl: :bounce: However the point is that wishing for more wishes generally will not work. But hey the OP can try it if he wants, maybe the DM will give it a pass. Of course keep in mind if he does allow that to work he may have something planned for any wishes you make using the new ring. Just something to keep in mind.
danielinthewolvesden 03-10-07, 03:26 PM	In this case, I was not talking about removing the player, just the character. The ring is rightfully the entire party's, unless the sellsword got it on his own and not from some treasure hoard or corpse after a battle. Just leave their friend dead, let the sellsword have his crocked wish, and CALL IT A DAY! Also, from an RP standpoint, I would refuse to travel with someone so selfish as to be unwilling to sacrifice one item that is iffy in value at best to help out the team. . Here is all we know about how the sellsword got the ring "One of our new companions happened upon a magical ring." The OP has not been back since his 1st post to answer any questions, which is always a bad sign. So, from just that, it appears it is not the "entire parties". Even if he found it while adventuring with them, if he selected it as his pick, or the party voted that he got it, the it is his. There are many other ways of raising the dead other than using a crocked wish ring, and in fact that is likely the worst way of doing it. Each PC can chip in to buy a spell, or the rogue can sell his stuff to buy the spell or other solutions. Why is it just the sellsword that has to sacrifice his item for the "good o the party" Why does not the rogue sacrifice one of his items? You are all fixated (as is the OP) on the ring as the only solution. If so, then sure the sellsword shoudl share. But it is not the only solurtion, and if I had been warned that that wish will be crocked, I would never use it to bring back a friend. That would be incredibly careless and risky.
Fatalis_902 03-10-07, 08:36 PM	Here is all we know about how the sellsword got the ring "One of our new companions happened upon a magical ring." The OP has not been back since his 1st post to answer any questions, which is always a bad sign. So, from just that, it appears it is not the "entire parties". Even if he found it while adventuring with them, if he selected it as his pick, or the party voted that he got it, the it is his. There are many other ways of raising the dead other than using a crocked wish ring, and in fact that is likely the worst way of doing it. Each PC can chip in to buy a spell, or the rogue can sell his stuff to buy the spell or other solutions. Why is it just the sellsword that has to sacrifice his item for the "good o the party" Why does not the rogue sacrifice one of his items? You are all fixated (as is the OP) on the ring as the only solution. If so, then sure the sellsword shoudl share. But it is not the only solurtion, and if I had been warned that that wish will be crocked, I would never use it to bring back a friend. That would be incredibly careless and risky. Maybe we are focusing too much on the ring. But hey, ring-based solutions are what the OP asked for, so those are what he gets. Are there better, more effective ways to revive the dead? Excluding rare and coincidentally bad circumstances, YES! Should the party in question try to find another solution? Perhaps. Is it gonna happen? Who knows. Besides, in this situation, the ring sounds more like some kind of either A) cursed item, or B) minor artifact. Which ever it is, it is likely a plot hook, hence the word twisting. Think The Monkey's Paw.
Crash169 03-11-07, 09:27 PM	First off, I'd like to apologize to all of you. I haven't checked back for a while, and almost forgot that I had even started a thread. My absence in the post thus far has started some questions, and I'm wiling to answer them. Here is all we know about how the sellsword got the ring "One of our new companions happened upon a magical ring." The OP has not been back since his 1st post to answer any questions, which is always a bad sign. So, from just that, it appears it is not the "entire parties". Even if he found it while adventuring with them, if he selected it as his pick, or the party voted that he got it, the it is his. He found the ring while we were killing the Evil lord I spoke of. But in Character, he is the only one who knows that information. What our characters know is that he found it between the time we reached the Lords Mansion, to a week after that. We left the mansion to head to our fallen friends home town of Ebinissia. My character Lucian, the rogue, decided to go on a quest to bring him back to life, with the parties consent of course. Lucian is a Non-believer. He never believed in magic, Monsters, elves... He had his own world, and he liked it. When we started adventuring (start of campaign) along our travels he started to believe more and more. The turning point of his beliefs was when he died. Garrick (the guy who just died) found a way to bring him back, by making him drink from magical pool of water. He was brought back to life, but cursed. His soul was no longer in the area, it had moved on. So the magic in the pool found the closest soul it could find, the soul of a Birdlike man. Lucian is driven to give him the gift that he had once received from Garrick. The gift of life. Lucian has no knowledge on how to bring someone back from the dead, all he knows is that it is possible, and he wants to repay his debt. The other party members would have knowledge of it, but the DM rules it out.. saying that the power of resurrection is not widely known, and If it was there would not be any legends, or stories of remembered hero's. We know that the sellsword, Clay Ohara, found the ring somewhere between the time of garricks death, and our travels.. Or at least somewhere close to then. We were suspicious so we questioned him about the ring, on where he got it, who gave it to him.. But he says his father gave it to him, and we can't prove him wrong, even though we tried countless times. Also, it seems that the ring was given to us (The PC's) to bring him back from the dead.. The DM runs a status quo type of world, and every now and then gives us little hints to plot hooks and new adventures. So Clay Ohara can use the ring for what he wants, but we're still trying to get him to do us this favor. I hope this answers any of the questions you guys had, and sorry again for taking so long to reply :P.
Ack 03-11-07, 11:51 PM	Wording wishes can be extremely problematical. I've known GMs who allowed players to run on for ages with the one wish, and I've known others who took the first comma as the end of the wish. Here's a different idea I had. In the presence of the ring (and thus, in the presence of whatever it is that grants the wishes, being itself sentient as it obviously 'crocks' the wishes as an expression of malice) say out loud the following: "I will now commence describing my desire for this day. My friend Garrick is to be restored to us, whole in body and limb, and not afflicted with any disease, wound or other debilitating condition. In addition, he must be in full possession of his mental and physical faculties, and be naturally alive, not enchanted or undead or in any way other than normally alive. There must be no curses or drawbacks associated with his return to life, nor must any person suffer due to the direct act of his being returned to life. His attitudes and philosophies must also be unchanged from when I knew him in life; he must be, in all ways, the same man as when I last knew him alive - without, of course, any life-threatening injury or damage of any kind. This restoration of Garrick is also to be carried out before one hour has passed, and he must be free and standing before us. That completes the description of my desire for this day." Pause. "I wish for my desire for this day to be carried out in full, without adding to, or subtracting from, the wording in any way, and carrying out the stated intention behind the wording in as benevolent a manner as possible."
Argo 03-12-07, 04:57 AM	Steal the ring, wish for the requisite cash money to pay for a True Res on your pal. I know there's a gp cap on how much gold a Wish can produce, but I'm not sure what it is... that may or may not work. Or, try Wishing for this: I wish for my friend <insert complete name> of <insert city/region he's from>, son of <whoever>, who helped us <insert quest you all undertook>, who <insert unique deed he personally did>, who was killed by <whatever>, <however many> days/moons/years ago, to be completely and truly returned to life in this time and on this plane, in the same form and with the same personality and same memories he had the instant before he died, but restored to perfect health and well-being and with all his former abilities, skills, and zesty in-your-face attitude we have all come to know and love.
Bedevere 03-12-07, 09:35 AM	Step 1) Write down a REALLY complicated wish, in character. Step 2) "I wish for the effect described on the piece of paper I am currently holding to take place as worded, without extra effects."
Ack 03-12-07, 10:10 AM	That works too. The original concept was for when you were facing a malevolent giver of wishes (for some reason, everything that can possibly grant wishes in our games would just as happily tear our heads off... what's with that?). Wish 1: "I wish for you to stay exactly where you are and do nothing but listen to what I have to say; only speak when I ask you a specific question, and say the full and complete truth, specifically as regards to my question, when I do so." Describe the full body of the wish. Explain in painful detail. Confer with the wish-giver regularly so that you know that it understands the requirements of the wish. Also make sure that it knows not to add anything extra. Persist to the point that the GM gets so sick of it that he's willing to grant the wish just so the game can go on. Get it in writing, so that he can't 'forget' some wording. (I've had that happen too). Wish 2: "I wish for you to carry out the terms of what I have just spoken about, fully and completely, as quickly as you are personally capable of doing so while still taking all due care, without adding or deleting any of the wording, in as benevolent a manner regarding me as possible." Wish 3: "I wish for you to return immediately to your home plane, taking nothing with you that you did not bring here, leaving all effects that you have caused to run their natural course, and performing no other act except to leave, now."
Darhelion 03-12-07, 10:45 AM	I'm always of the school of wishing that a lawyer-wish is BEGGING to be twisted, and possibly just to fail utterly. While the ring's reputation may require you to be extremely careful with your wording so as not to screw anything up, it's still best to keep it simple, in the manner of great wishes of myth and legend. The simplest wish to restore life to one who died before their time is: "I wish he hadn't died." Slightly more complicated or specific in the case that you feel it necessary (to prevent 'he is instead crippled' or some other undesirable 'fate worse than death' is applied): "I wish he never suffered that fatal blow/was never poisoned/had avoided that life-ending event." All three of those can be reinterpreted - "that" fatal blow might mean he live two more rounds, or he could die of something else, or it might even cause someone else to have died in his place given how time might play out differently - but they are at least not going to cause him to come back "wrong". At worst, you traded another life for his, and maybe nothing came of wasting the wish if he died later instead of sooner. As for wishing for spells and scrolls and such, I point out that Wish (as written in D&D) cannot duplicate any spell of 9th level or higher. Given that this is a plotwish with unknown but suspected downsides, however, we can't be positive of its power. We can, however, be certain that the DM would probably prefer something flavorful and in-character rather than a lawyer-reading wish that sucks the fun and magic out of it and replaces it with dry, legalistic binding. Finally, given that this is rather obviously something from which the DM intends to have some plot hooks come, consider not using this wish to directly accomplish your goal. Wish instead for means, knowledge, or guidance towards the method. Rather than "I wish Garrick alive" or some varient with that as its spirit, wish for the means to bring him back. My suggestion: "I wish to know what I must do to repay Garrick for all he has done for me." 1) You've wished for knowledge, so it is up to you to act on it. 2) It is what -you- must do, so it is theoretically doable, if not without herculean efforts (and what are adventuring parties for, if not going on quests requiring herculean efforts?), and includes enough information to get started. 3) You'll either know a lot about what you have to do, and probably be able to infer the full consequences, or 4) you'll know where to get started, and have an interesting quest unfold before you. 5) Because of the effort going into this, and the chance for failure, the wish may well use that as its own twisting, and the DM (from a meta-game standpoint) has been given the leeway to make this as involved or as simple as he chooses, and thus may reward a successful completion of this quest with what you actually wanted. 6) As an added bonus, if your friend is happy or otherwise better off in his final reward than he would be returned to life, you'd gain the knowledge that doing nothing or remembering him or living your life in such-and-such a manner is the best way to repay him, rather than wasting effort on bringing him back when he wouldn't want that. 7) The worst twisting I can see lies in what Garrick actually did for you - since your soul isn't your original one, you might accidentally bring him back in similar condition. However, as you're unaware of anything being wrong, he probably would be similarly blissfully unaware. Also, if in some way he has done wrong by you, this would sneak in vengeance without your character even being aware that he was in some way harming a guilty man. So those are how I see it doing something you don't want to have happen. Hopefully, the knowledge would give you some hint, with proper research, but it should at worst be a wasted wish.
Ack 03-12-07, 11:01 AM	My view is this: They give us access to a potentially explosive opportunity, one which, if handled wrongly, has the capability to screw us all over thoroughly. Why shouldn't we take a lot of time and care and effort to get the wording just right? The GM will certainly be looking to twist it. Even the simplest, most innocuous wishes can be grabbed and wrenched into player-harming aspects - and you never know whether the GM will simply grant it or go into full "evil lawyer mode" until you've made it. These days, I avoid wishes like the plague. If I don't have the chance to lay down every single aspect of what I want, in triplicate (wording it three different ways to avoid confusion) then to hell with it. It's a hugely powerful effect - I'm under no obligation to allow my hands to be tied before dealing with it. A while ago, my character was approached in-game by a demonic entity who wanted to grant him a wish. I refused. He pestered me. I continued to refuse. So when my character went to do something mildly illegal (purchasing a gun in Algiers) the GM had an undercover cop follow me across town and back again, wholly and solely to arrest me for something I had done in another country. And then the demon popped up again, and offered the Wish again. So I sighed, looked at the cop, and said, "You know, I wish you were back in Naples right now." The cop exploded; apparently his remains were spread (very thinly) from Algiers to Naples (IMO, not a very precise rendering of the wish). But enough was left behind to cover my character in his blood. Which nearly caused the other PCs to have me arrested (my hands were still cuffed behind my back) until I pointed out that this would take my character out of the game for good. A little bit of backtracking later, and the game was back on track. But :banghead: I :banghead: didn't :banghead: want :banghead: that :banghead: wish.
Crash169 03-12-07, 01:57 PM	Thank you all for your responses. I'm really starting to realize that if my DM wants something bad to happen, and the legend of the ring says that something always does get taken out of context, then no matter how we word the wish something bad is definately going to happen anyways. Darhelion, I especially like your context of wishes; "I wish he never suffered that fatal blow/was never poisoned/had avoided that life-ending event." It's asking for something more specific than just bringing him back to life. It's asking that something that had happened in the past, didn't happen.. And for some reason I think we have a better chance with a wish somewhat like this. There is although, another decision we have to make. Garrick's father is the arch bishop of a temple of Hieroneous in his hometown of Ebinissia. He helped me with my curse in the past, he told me how I was missing my actual soul, and how it was replaced by a Bird-mans. It seems that if anyone we knew had the knowledge of bringing him back to life, it would be his father. But his father is very stern, very bold.. very closed minded. I don't think he would want his son to be raised. I feel as though when we tell him how his son died, he'd think it a good way to die. Garrick was a Paladin/Monk of Heironeous. I don't know how he wanted to die, but dying in battle would have seemed suitable for him. So, we have to decide whether to use the Wish now, or to wait until we get to Ebinissia to ask his father. If we wait to get to ebinissia, there might be a chance his father doesn't want him to be raised. If we raise him now, he might come back cursed or deformed in some way.... Oh and I was really thinking about the "wishing for knowledge" idea.. What if our DM just makes the magic user learn a necrmancy spell or something like that... I don't know if thats such a good idea... to vague...
Pajaul 03-12-07, 03:23 PM	I wouldn't rely on the object for a wish, I'd rely on myself. "I wish I, as I am now, had the benevolent power to grant a single wish my way when I want to." This gives you the power to bring him back to life, with no other third party to twist it since YOU are making the wish come true. The 'as I am now + when I want' doesn't allow the ring to add anything to you or force a time frame on you. The 'my way' lets you dictate who makes the wish, and the 'a single' allows you to make only one wish, and the ‘benevolent’ part means it doesn’t harm you or anyone else. Any loop holes?
danielinthewolvesden 03-12-07, 03:32 PM	Steal the ring, wish for the requisite cash money to pay for a True Res on your pal. If you read the OP's post above "Lucian has no knowledge on how to bring someone back from the dead, all he knows is that it is possible, and he wants to repay his debt. The other party members would have knowledge of it, but the DM rules it out.. saying that the power of resurrection is not widely known, and If it was there would not be any legends, or stories of remembered hero's. " So that would not work.
danielinthewolvesden 03-12-07, 03:43 PM	Why shouldn't we take a lot of time and care and effort to get the wording just right? The GM will certainly be looking to twist it. Even the simplest, most innocuous wishes can be grabbed and wrenched into player-harming aspects - and you never know whether the GM will simply grant it or go into full "evil lawyer mode" until you've made it. Becuase that's not how the Wish spell works, according to RAW. If your Wish is within the limits as per the spell, then it is granted. No crocking, no twisting of words. In the OP case, the Wish is a crocked wish, in which case, asking for anything more than a Ham sandwich (a famous wish in one of my early campaigns) will be crocked. And that's fair. But in this case, no special wording will help, and the last thing I would want to do is use a crocked wish to try and bring someone back to life. Crash169 :Go to "Garrick's father is the arch bishop of a temple of Hieroneous in his hometown of Ebinissia." that should do it. OOC, what doies Garrick's player want? I assume he is already running a new PC?
robertliguori 03-12-07, 04:10 PM	"I wish that the following wish were to be granted exactly as if being granted by a entity benevolent to me: *describe wish here*." There are two ways to run the wish spell; the defined, and the undefined. In the defined way, Wish is just a 9th-level spell, that can produce the effects described in its spell description without extra cost or hassle. In the undefined, it's the DM's excuse to have completely random things happen, regardless of what you actually say, mean, or how previous wishes have happened. You can use Do What I Mean language to defeat DM-lawyering, but if a DM is determined to screw with you, then it does not take you making a wish for it to happen.
Ack 03-12-07, 04:16 PM	Which is why I don't do Wishes. Putting them in the way of PCs who have not yet gotten to the dizzying heights where they can access themselves is merely putting a loaded assault rifle with the safety catch filed off into the hands of a hyperactive monkey with ADD. You don't quite know exactly what's going to happen, but it'll be interesting, destructive, and probably quite entertaining, to the outside observer anyway.
ArcTan 03-12-07, 04:28 PM	The problem with all this is an absence of good faith. Look, if the DM hands you the ring and he more or less tells you that the ring is supposed to pervert wishing -- above and beyond what the wish spell in the PHB warns about -- then that's what he wants it to do. He wants to do it because it'll give him the ability to throw interesting plot points into the game by twisting around a wish in interesting ways. By trying to lawyer out an ironclad way to wish, you're first of all wasting your time -- the DM is a human being, not a machine, and if he *wants* to twist a wish around even by blatantly ignoring something you say, he will -- and second of all assuming bad faith. The DM's job is not to destroy your game. The DM's job is to make your game *interesting*. He *wants* to do something cool and interesting by twisting around a wish like "I wish for so-and-so to be returned to life", *especially* if it seems clear that he's hinting to you that this is the intended use of the ring by the plot. So do it. Grab the hook. Let him show you what he's got planned. Making a five-paragraph long lawyerly wish is both unrealistic (most of the time wish effects have to be made within the time of one standard action) and insulting to your DM. If you don't trust him to do something fair, interesting and creative with the wish, then you shouldn't be playing with him in the first place. There's a weird mentality here where people forget that D&D is a game and pretend they're really living in this world with cold, uncaring laws of magic that you have to find a way to get around in order to survive. It's what leads to the powergamer mentality, and I don't like it. Work *with* the DM, not against him, and do what makes for an interesting story or challenging game, not what you'd do in real life to destroy all possibility of risk or danger.
ArcTan 03-12-07, 04:38 PM	My view is this: They give us access to a potentially explosive opportunity, one which, if handled wrongly, has the capability to screw us all over thoroughly. Why shouldn't we take a lot of time and care and effort to get the wording just right? The GM will certainly be looking to twist it. Even the simplest, most innocuous wishes can be grabbed and wrenched into player-harming aspects - and you never know whether the GM will simply grant it or go into full "evil lawyer mode" until you've made it. I won't respond to all the things here that shout "DYSFUNCTIONAL D&D GROUP" into my ear, but just look at this one. You know, OOC, that the wish is designed to cause all hell to break loose. From your perspective, all hell breaking loose is *interesting*. It gives you a chance for the campaign to take a left turn. It creates possibilities. Why try to stop the possibilities by trying to be sensible? D&D is a story about adventure. The sensible thing for adventurers to do would be to stay home, become farmers and not go on adventures in the first place. This is why most D&D adventurers aren't sensible people, by nature. IC, you should be the kind of person who will fearlessly use a wish if he has to and deal with the consequences. And your DM shouldn't be playing the kind of "evil lawyer" who wants to take any opportunity to encase your characters in lead and drop them to the deepest depths of Hell. Because *that* isn't interesting either. It's stupid. A DM who wants to do that doesn't need a wish spell in the first place -- he just needs to *say* "Oh, and an asteroid hits the planet you're on and you all die". And then get up from the table and not play with your group anymore. A good DM wants you to do silly things so that he can jump on them and create story and game opportunities from them. He *wants* you to set off the trap and create a cool encounter. And that should be what you want, too. A campaign that's devolved into the players sitting there in paranoid silence in order to avoid being attacked and ripped to shreds by the DM is a stupid campaign. These days, I avoid wishes like the plague. If I don't have the chance to lay down every single aspect of what I want, in triplicate (wording it three different ways to avoid confusion) then to hell with it. It's a hugely powerful effect - I'm under no obligation to allow my hands to be tied before dealing with it. A while ago, my character was approached in-game by a demonic entity who wanted to grant him a wish. I refused. He pestered me. I continued to refuse. So when my character went to do something mildly illegal (purchasing a gun in Algiers) the GM had an undercover cop follow me across town and back again, wholly and solely to arrest me for something I had done in another country. And then the demon popped up again, and offered the Wish again. So I sighed, looked at the cop, and said, "You know, I wish you were back in Naples right now." The cop exploded; apparently his remains were spread (very thinly) from Algiers to Naples (IMO, not a very precise rendering of the wish). But enough was left behind to cover my character in his blood. Which nearly caused the other PCs to have me arrested (my hands were still cuffed behind my back) until I pointed out that this would take my character out of the game for good. A little bit of backtracking later, and the game was back on track. But :banghead: I :banghead: didn't :banghead: want :banghead: that :banghead: wish. Let's rephrase that: The DM offers you an interesting plot hook. You say "No, I don't want the plot hook. I want the plot to simply not happen, and for the game to bog down and stop." The DM gets angry and frustrated. You say "Instead I want to go down this other, random plot path that you, the DM, don't know about and haven't prepared for, making the game ever harder to run". The DM finally finagles an unlikely situation that *forces* you to take his plot hook. Unfortunately, he does it in a way that allows the PCs to simply end the game rather than getting anything interesting out of it. You all have to backtrack and pretend it never happened. In other words: You Have A Bad Gaming Group. It has nothing to do with wishing or not wishing. In a good campaign, when a demonic entity offers you a wish, you *take* the wish, and interesting things happen as a result. When was the last time you read a good book, or watched a good movie, or played a good video game when the plot went "And then the character was offered an intriguing opportunity, but the character ignored it and it went away and was never brought up again, and the character went on to achieve his goals without further ado?" COME ON.
Fatalis_902 03-12-07, 09:36 PM	But none of what you said changes the fact that the DM could have had the demonic entity offer the wish to a different character, or could have found a better plot hook to use, one that the character was willing to work with. A DM who forces a character to make a decision that is outside of his/her nature is not a good DM, simple as that. They can improve, but they need to work on that issue. It's like the DM forcing the paladin to choose between saving a new-born infant and the senior cleric of his church. It's just not fair, and either way, the paladin loses. In this case, a person was forced to accept a wish from a demonic entity. That happens to fall outside the nature of most sentient creatures. The DM was in the wrong for forcing the player to play the character outside of his nature, not the player for refusing a demon-wish.
TRCEttin 03-12-07, 11:30 PM	Look, if the DM hands you the ring and he more or less tells you that the ring is supposed to pervert wishing -- above and beyond what the wish spell in the PHB warns about -- then that's what he wants it to do. He wants to do it because it'll give him the ability to throw interesting plot points into the game by twisting around a wish in interesting ways. Assuming that's what he wants to do (he did warn you beforehand, after all), I agree. Anyway, if you try really hard, you can make something bad happen anyway. Seriously, take this: "I wish in a way that requires full adherence to the entirety of the request I am currently making, and not merely a partial fulfilment of any sort, that Garrick, son of Arnal, who died (list approximate time, location and circumstances of death), and not anyone resembling him in name, appearance, personality or cause, time and place of death in any way, would return to life (not undeath) as if resurrected by an appropriately powerful cleric of a good deity who is friendly to both me and Garrick at the least, physically and mentally identical to his state as of one (unit of time of your choice) before his death in every way and in good health with no added enchantments, curses, diseases, magical effects or anything else which would alter his condition at all in any way whatsoever, appearing directly beside me as soon as I finish stating the conditions of this Wish in a way that will not and does not have the potential to cause physical, emotional or any other kind of harm to myself, Garrick or anybody else for that matter, including (but not limited to) position, proximity to potentially harmful objects whether they have a physical presence or not, and the possibility of any harmful attack, spell or anything else that may cause harm being targeted at him (or close enough to the area he appears in to cause harm) now or any time in the next five minutes or already have been targeted, whether I or Garrick or anyone else who may be potentially able to warn us is aware of this or not, and finally Garrick will be incapable of being harmed, killed or affected in way (aside from the request, with terms and conditions, initially made of this spell by myself and no other) whatsoever at any time, directly or indirectly, by this spell or anything whatsoever affected by this spell, including but not limited to inanimate objects, people, their thoughts, any kind of living or unliving beings, their thoughts, spells, ongoing magical effects, magical items including those as yet uncreated, actions caused directly or indirectly by any of the above or following and in fact anything else at all at whatsoever." A really determined DM will probably need about five, maybe ten minutes to pervert that wish without even OOCly resorting to restricting the player's ability to make that wish in the first place. If he wants a plot hook, just roll with it. Don't worry about elaborately-constructed wishes.
Crash169 03-13-07, 02:24 AM	First off, I already gave up on the elaborately worded wishes. I'm going to stick with something simple. I'm trying to decide whether we should go to Ebinissia to ask his father, (the arch bishop) what to do. Or to wish for it before getting there. I know that half the party wants to wish for him to come back now, and the other half is totally against it. There was actually some conflict involving a little suggestion spell. The half of the party that wanted the wish to happen now, was peer pressuring the sellsword with the ring to wish Garrick back form the dead on the spot. The bard, which was totally against this, cast a suggestion spell on the sellsword, suggesting he doesn't do that. The druid caught him casting the spell.. that really ticked him off. The argument settled with them sharing some harsh words and other characters stepping in-between to stop the in-fighting. As for the character who is currently dead, he is not playing another character right now, since we've only had one session since he died. But he does want to come back. (out of character) The thing is, he doesn't have much say in what we do, since he's dead. And we don't really want to metagame anything. The DM is going to crock the wish no matter what. I'm certain of that now. When I died and they raised me, my character came back with an affliction. I started to realize that I was growing feathers, in my hair, and on my chest and back. A few weeks later, I started getting sores on my shoulder blades. Which I would later learn to be the start of wings. As I progressed in levels I found it useful to pump some ranks into disguise, to hide my shame. Soon after, the problem became noticed by the party, they hated me for hiding it from them, but it was my first instinct to keep it to myself. We tried getting the curse removed, but we found out that it was no regular curse. When they cast the spell on me they learned that it was extracting the soul I had. If they would have followed through, it would have killed me. I had to find out the hard way. I've had the afflicton for months now, I've stopped disguising myself recently, and My wings have grown in full because of the Remove Curse ordeal. So, those are the types of thing that happen with our DM. He brought me back from the dead, with no EXP penalty. But it cost me a little. It challenged me RP wise, but I found it fun :P. We get to play wednesday, I'll come back and let you guys know what happen.. If your still interested.
TRCEttin 03-13-07, 02:30 AM	First off, I already gave up on the elaborately worded wishes. I'm going to stick with something simple. Oh, whoops. Didn't read the whole thread. Oh well. Don't use that thing I said on the DM, though. For one thing, the bit about the guy appearing next to you can be interpreted as "wherever he's really resurrected, you get teleported there without fail so you can be next to him. Yay!" Plus, it's probably really annoying! We get to play wednesday, I'll come back and let you guys know what happen.. If your still interested. I am!
danielinthewolvesden 03-13-07, 03:37 AM	As for the character who is currently dead, he is not playing another character right now, since we've only had one session since he died. But he does want to come back. The thing is, he doesn't have much say in what we do, since he's dead. . However, a PC's death does not mean the Player no longer gets to play. He should already have a new PC. If he chooses to discard the new PC and play with his old one, should the raise dead work, that is fine.
Ack 03-13-07, 04:22 AM	The problem with all this is an absence of good faith. The lack of good faith is due to the fact that I have been gaming under this GM for 15 years now, and I know how he handles wishes. First couple of times, we tried them out. Whee, a wish. Made a simple, easy to understand wish. Ten times as much trouble as we ever wanted to handle promptly landed in our laps. Got to the point where the GM had to bail us out just so we wouldn't all die. The latest wish episode? I don't know what it was. We already HAD a plot. I think it was the GM trying to set a future plot line in place. We didn't even have much of a reason to wish for anything. Except for maybe, "I wish you didn't exist." When someone walks up to a character of mine and tries to sell him an obviously stolen or fake gold watch, unless he has a pressing in-character reason to buy it, he is under no obligation to do so. If the GM hasn't already put reasons in for him to want to buy it, he's got no right to whine when the player says, "Thanks but I already have one," and walks on with his hands in his pockets (so the guy can't steal the one he's wearing). Any adventure hook has to look tasty, otherwise it's just a sharp piece of steel that's gonna make your life as uncomfortable as hell.
DyloniusFunk 03-13-07, 01:20 PM	The lack of good faith is due to the fact that I have been gaming under this GM for 15 years now, and I know how he handles wishes. First couple of times, we tried them out. Whee, a wish. Made a simple, easy to understand wish. Ten times as much trouble as we ever wanted to handle promptly landed in our laps. Got to the point where the GM had to bail us out just so we wouldn't all die. The latest wish episode? I don't know what it was. We already HAD a plot. I think it was the GM trying to set a future plot line in place. We didn't even have much of a reason to wish for anything. Except for maybe, "I wish you didn't exist." When someone walks up to a character of mine and tries to sell him an obviously stolen or fake gold watch, unless he has a pressing in-character reason to buy it, he is under no obligation to do so. If the GM hasn't already put reasons in for him to want to buy it, he's got no right to whine when the player says, "Thanks but I already have one," and walks on with his hands in his pockets (so the guy can't steal the one he's wearing). Any adventure hook has to look tasty, otherwise it's just a sharp piece of steel that's gonna make your life as uncomfortable as hell. [Lewis Black] Here's an idea. If the DM really wanted you to take the wish, he could have had a creature offer it to you.... THAT WASN'T A FRELLING DEMON![/Lewis Black] Seriously, a demon offers you a wish, and you say no and the DM gets upset? I'm assuming you were in a standard good or neutral game and not an evil one. Hell even an evil character wouldn't take that deal it might put them under the thrall of a demon and most evil characters are evil becasue they want themselves to be on top, not the lackies of more pwoerful beings. I don't think you can call it metagaming when a demon offers youa wish and you refuse it. Unless your DM is saying that even despite your training you can't recognize an obvious demon because you don't have enough ranks in Knowledge(Planes) or Knowledge(Religion). Not even to identify it's type, just to know it's a demon.
Ack 03-13-07, 01:32 PM	Okay, this was a d20 Modern game, but there were enough hints that this demonic thingy was unusual, not to mention unnatural, that we figured out what it was pretty quickly. In any case, the GM didn't have an issue with me realising what was doing the offering - he just wanted me to take the offer, right or wrong.
danielinthewolvesden 03-13-07, 02:38 PM	However, a PC's death does not mean the Player no longer gets to play. He should already have a new PC. If he chooses to discard the new PC and play with his old one, should the raise dead work, that is fine. To make myself more clear, you need to talk to Bob (I am makiing up a name for Garrick's player) and make sure he wants to still play and that he'd rather run a new PC rather than sit there and twiddle his thumbs. Then you need to go to the DM and ask "Why was Bob not allowed to play last game? Does dying in your campaign mean that you are out of the campaign and can not play aymore? Why should Bob be penalized as the CHARACTERs are having problems coming up with a good way to get Garrick back?" Why do not you ask your DM to come here and answer a few questions?
Crash169 03-13-07, 04:31 PM	To make myself more clear, you need to talk to Bob (I am makiing up a name for Garrick's player) and make sure he wants to still play and that he'd rather run a new PC rather than sit there and twiddle his thumbs. Then you need to go to the DM and ask "Why was Bob not allowed to play last game? Does dying in your campaign mean that you are out of the campaign and can not play aymore? Why should Bob be penalized as the CHARACTERs are having problems coming up with a good way to get Garrick back?" Why do not you ask your DM to come here and answer a few questions? Ohhh, well, Garricks player wants to play Garrick. He has another Character rolled up and made, and he was planning to play that new character, but a day later he told the DM that he still wants to play Garrick. Also, it's not as if he's just sitting there doing nothing, the DM has him helping him in battle and stuff.. let's him play an NPC or two. Our group is really close, we've all been friends for over 10 years, except for one of us, which has only been a friend for about 5 years. We don't have any out of character disputes. Everything that happens in character happens in character. We joke about it out of character all the time, we're really laid back and have no problem with backstabbing eachother. It's a game, we're roleplaying in the game to have fun, none of us ever get mad out of game because of in game stuff... Thats just childish.
Crash169 03-15-07, 02:37 AM	So we finally got to play. I'm going to warn you guys, it's a little long. This is how we ended up wishing him back: We brought Garrick's body to his fathers temple and told him the news. He is a wise old man, and he cared deeply for his son. He told us that he had for-seen what had happened in a vision, but told us that it was very noble of us to bring the body to him, so that he may see that it was true. We then proceeded to ask him if he knew of a way to bring his son back to life. I told him personally that I owed his son that much, and that I wouldn't rest until he was by my side once again. He told us that he did not have the knowledge, or the power, on how to bring any being back from the dead. "What if we might have a way to bring him back?" I said. "what?" he said surprised. "We found a ring, and according to legend, it grants a wish." I said. "What? what ring?" he said with interest. "Although, it is also rumored that the wish has some drawbacks, it sometimes twists the wish, we don't know what could happen." I said. "hmmmm, What do you mean.. twists?" He said, grief showing in his old wizened eyes. "He may come back disabled, or as an undead for all we know." The room fell silent. All of our eyes were on our dead friends father. The only man we thought could help us. He took a few moments to ponder and then he said, "I must think on this, I will return in the morning, feel free to make yourselves at home. I will have my servants find you an empty lodge." He returned in the morning, and told us he's had a vision. In the vision he saw a Flaming rock with a tail of fire soaring through the sky. He said that Hieroneous shows him things, past, present and future. This was the only sign he has ever seen where he could not make out the meaning. We then proceeded to start thinking about the wish. If we have to wish, we have to come up with the right wording. Some of our companions were totally against it. They really thought that something bad was going to happen. After a lot of discussion, and all of us realizing that the ring would be our only hope of bringing him back, we decided to word the wish. Garrick's father was hesitant to let us use the ring, but he cared for his son, and if there was a chance he could see him again, he was willing to take it. The skylight windows of the room were each letting a beam of sunlight in, forming a circular shape on the floor. One of the windows was open. There was snow falling ever so slightly right around the center of the room. It was an other-worldly sight to see, and although it was not cold, the feeling made you chill to the bone. We stood around the body, a few of us left the room because they were afraid what would happen. We said the words: "I wish that Garrick, son of Arnal, loyal servant of hieroneous, be brought back to life right here before us in the same condition that he was in during his last days of life." Suddenly, Garrick took his first breath. It didn't sink in at first, but Garrick soon realized that he was brought back to life. We checked his body, we asked him his name.. everything was perfect. He was brought back from the dead, and he was whole. After a few moments of us rejoicing, a man came into the room and caused a stir, "A red star has appeared!" We all rushed outside, to see what the commotion was. Arnal's vision came true. From here it seemed like a star, but for all of us, it was much more. A flaming rock was in the sky. It didn't seem as if it was moving, but we knew it was.
Fatalis_902 03-15-07, 09:21 PM	Neat! You get your friend back, the party gets a plot hook, and the commoners get rich off of satrmetal from the rock. This ending RULES!!!
gimby 03-15-07, 09:49 PM	Just be on the lookout for a tall, white haired man with a black trenchcoat and a huuuge katana...
robertliguori 03-15-07, 11:35 PM	So we finally got to play. I'm going to warn you guys, it's a little long. This is how we ended up wishing him back: We brought Garrick's body to his fathers temple and told him the news. He is a wise old man, and he cared deeply for his son. He told us that he had for-seen what had happened in a vision, but told us that it was very noble of us to bring the body to him, so that he may see that it was true. We then proceeded to ask him if he knew of a way to bring his son back to life. I told him personally that I owed his son that much, and that I wouldn't rest until he was by my side once again. He told us that he did not have the knowledge, or the power, on how to bring any being back from the dead. "What if we might have a way to bring him back?" I said. "what?" he said surprised. "We found a ring, and according to legend, it grants a wish." I said. "What? what ring?" he said with interest. "Although, it is also rumored that the wish has some drawbacks, it sometimes twists the wish, we don't know what could happen." I said. "hmmmm, What do you mean.. twists?" He said, grief showing in his old wizened eyes. "He may come back disabled, or as an undead for all we know." The room fell silent. All of our eyes were on our dead friends father. The only man we thought could help us. He took a few moments to ponder and then he said, "I must think on this, I will return in the morning, feel free to make yourselves at home. I will have my servants find you an empty lodge." He returned in the morning, and told us he's had a vision. In the vision he saw a Flaming rock with a tail of fire soaring through the sky. He said that Hieroneous shows him things, past, present and future. This was the only sign he has ever seen where he could not make out the meaning. We then proceeded to start thinking about the wish. If we have to wish, we have to come up with the right wording. Some of our companions were totally against it. They really thought that something bad was going to happen. After a lot of discussion, and all of us realizing that the ring would be our only hope of bringing him back, we decided to word the wish. Garrick's father was hesitant to let us use the ring, but he cared for his son, and if there was a chance he could see him again, he was willing to take it. The skylight windows of the room were each letting a beam of sunlight in, forming a circular shape on the floor. One of the windows was open. There was snow falling ever so slightly right around the center of the room. It was an other-worldly sight to see, and although it was not cold, the feeling made you chill to the bone. We stood around the body, a few of us left the room because they were afraid what would happen. We said the words: "I wish that Garrick, son of Arnal, loyal servant of hieroneous, be brought back to life right here before us in the same condition that he was in during his last days of life." Suddenly, Garrick took his first breath. It didn't sink in at first, but Garrick soon realized that he was brought back to life. We checked his body, we asked him his name.. everything was perfect. He was brought back from the dead, and he was whole. After a few moments of us rejoicing, a man came into the room and caused a stir, "A red star has appeared!" We all rushed outside, to see what the commotion was. Arnal's vision came true. From here it seemed like a star, but for all of us, it was much more. A flaming rock was in the sky. It didn't seem as if it was moving, but we knew it was. If a blonde girl with purple eyes comes through leading a group of women and children refugees, do not attack her. Politely direct her to the nearest city you don't much like, and go the other way.
FrostWolf 03-16-07, 12:26 AM	I wouldn't worry too much about the wish. Twisting it is just a thing for DMs to make sure the players don't start wishing for giant mecha dino bots with rocket launchers for arms. Just get with the DM and tell him you intend to use the ring to bring a player character back. If he still intends to screw with you, then give the ring to a temple in exchange for bringing back you friend.
Another_Poet 03-16-07, 01:04 AM	Compromise with the sellword. Tell him to wish for "A 100 foot tall pile of valuable magic items, 300 feet to our right and not touching us, which includes a fully charged staff of true resurrection." You use the staff on your friend, he sells magic items for loot. ap
Pajaul 03-16-07, 03:53 AM	Thus appears 100 foot tall piles of cursed items, and/or one very angry blue dragon whom is the owner of the treasure, or many many high level highly P.O.ed wizards wanting their possessions back, or you're arrested for stealing the entire contents of the most magical museum in the world. or a deity strikes you down for stealing his holly relics. or 100 foot tall pile of magically altered vials of alchemist fire that the staff drops on, being last, to set them off. or a hundred foot tall golem made of magical items with the staff imbedded in it. Etc etc etc If the Dm wants to get you, he will, no matter how you word it. Luckily, the Dm wanted the character brought back to life.
Bedevere 03-16-07, 07:16 AM	A 100 ft tall pile of adamantine golems, with their creator at the top of the pile. He is holding a staff of infinite uses per day contingency - true ressurection. (DM's. DON'T use this idea if any of your players have the 'entice gift' spell from BoVD memorised. :D )
Crash169 03-16-07, 01:39 PM	The wish has already been made. I guess some of you guys just don't read the posts. lol!
danielinthewolvesden 03-16-07, 01:51 PM	The wish has already been made. I guess some of you guys just don't read the posts. lol! A good number do not.:P
TRCEttin 03-16-07, 07:14 PM	Looks like your DM had a plot hook planned after all. Nice one!
ArcTan 03-17-07, 11:32 AM	But none of what you said changes the fact that the DM could have had the demonic entity offer the wish to a different character, or could have found a better plot hook to use, one that the character was willing to work with. A DM who forces a character to make a decision that is outside of his/her nature is not a good DM, simple as that. They can improve, but they need to work on that issue. It's like the DM forcing the paladin to choose between saving a new-born infant and the senior cleric of his church. It's just not fair, and either way, the paladin loses. In this case, a person was forced to accept a wish from a demonic entity. That happens to fall outside the nature of most sentient creatures. The DM was in the wrong for forcing the player to play the character outside of his nature, not the player for refusing a demon-wish. Oh, I agree. I think this is a clear case of dysfunction caused by a DM who likes forcing things in a campaign rather than letting them come naturally. But players carrying that dysfunction into other games by advising people to act as though they, too, have a dysfunctional DM is a problem. If you've started writing lawyer wishes, you have a problem (unless you genuinely think this is the most fun way to implement the wish spell).
ArcTan 03-17-07, 11:37 AM	The lack of good faith is due to the fact that I have been gaming under this GM for 15 years now, and I know how he handles wishes. First couple of times, we tried them out. Whee, a wish. Made a simple, easy to understand wish. Ten times as much trouble as we ever wanted to handle promptly landed in our laps. Got to the point where the GM had to bail us out just so we wouldn't all die. The latest wish episode? I don't know what it was. We already HAD a plot. I think it was the GM trying to set a future plot line in place. We didn't even have much of a reason to wish for anything. Except for maybe, "I wish you didn't exist." When someone walks up to a character of mine and tries to sell him an obviously stolen or fake gold watch, unless he has a pressing in-character reason to buy it, he is under no obligation to do so. If the GM hasn't already put reasons in for him to want to buy it, he's got no right to whine when the player says, "Thanks but I already have one," and walks on with his hands in his pockets (so the guy can't steal the one he's wearing). Any adventure hook has to look tasty, otherwise it's just a sharp piece of steel that's gonna make your life as uncomfortable as hell. Yeah, but this is clearly a problem with your DM, not with wish as such. Maybe he's only dysfunctional when using the wish spell, because he thinks it's somehow license to "take the gloves off", or maybe he does this kind of thing with other game elements as well. But in any case, your DM doing this is violating the terms of the wish spell as it exists in the game and just being a bad DM. Whereas it sounds like the OP's DM is a quite good one. He created a negative consequence of using a wish, but made it a supernatural consequence with interesting flavor -- and one not dependent on the hackneyed concept of "taking the wish too literally". Resurrecting the dude brought down the red star because that's what super-powerful evil magic does, not because he worded the wish wrong.